Have you ever looked at an analytics report and struggled to make sense of it? If you’re not an analytics expert, but you need to interpret data in order to make decisions for your business, keep reading this post.

 

The Analytics Problem

 

For many of us, the term ‘analytics’ refers to data collected about user behaviour on a website. How are people finding us online and what do they do when they visit? And sometimes, why aren’t they doing what we want them to?

 

Beyond websites, companies large and small generate data just by opening their doors, answering their phones, shipping products, and dealing with customer concerns. Every paper (or e-paper) trail has bits of information that represents how the associated business is performing.

 

You know your business generates huge amounts of data by interacting, not just with customers, but with members of the public who kick your digital tires and walk away.

 

Drawing accurate conclusions from website and/or business data can make the difference between effective growth strategies and misguided decisions that tank a business.

 

However, analytics don’t solve problems alone. In fact, they’re pretty useless if you’re not able to extract meaning from all those numbers. Even if you draw correct conclusions from your data, you need clever and innovative solutions to whatever problems you identify. You need to be following industry trends, news, and economic variables for a holistic understanding of the ‘why’ before you decide on the ‘how’ solution.

 

Did your bounce rate just mysteriously jump by ten per cent? You might be frantically wondering what happened and start poring over analytics looking for a reason. If you know you’d employ a bit of guesswork to come up with an answer, you’re not alone.

 

So it makes sense for businesses of even a moderate size to employ a dedicated analytics expert. Large businesses and corporations maintain analytics teams, people whose knowledge of business information translates to meaningful business intelligence.

 

We can’t forget to factor in the smart buildings of the future. These structures will need information management and interpretation on an unprecedented scale. Every action – temperature adjustments, security cameras, door lock activity and fob authentications, waste removal and recycling, HVAC maintenance – will generate hordes of data. And that’s just for buildings! Think about smart cities with the associated infrastructure including water, power, sewage, transit and more. All generating data. It’s not a job for human hands any longer.

 

The Augmented Solution

 

If you’ve ever wanted someone to explain what all the data really, truly means, we’ve got good news; that explanation can now come from a computer.

 

While people can often be wrong, computers, specifically Artificial Intelligence, are far more likely to be right. Especially when it comes to numbers. Automated insights generated through Machine Learning mean that you’re placing data interpretation and actionable strategies in the hands of Augmented Analytics.

 

At this point, we don’t recommend replacing your analytics person (or team) with Augmented Analytics. But we do think this is an amazing tool to add to their toolkit. Think of it as letting your data people get a second opinion from a trustworthy source. Augmented Analytics is so new that we still need data scientists and business analysts to make sense of how it works and how we incorporate it into workplace processes.

 

Analytic experts will find these new augmented products easy to use because of built-in Natural Language Generation. This means the Augmented Analytics tools will produce insights that come in the form of sentences. You can even ask questions, like, “What was our top-selling product category in 2018?” Then follow up with, “Why was that our best category?” and get an accurate answer quickly.

 

Are you excited about Augmented Analytics yet? If you’d like to find out how your business can incorporate the analytics of the future, email the Stambol team to learn more.

 

Image Credit: sittinan / Adobe Stock