BUS5PB Principles of Business Analytics - Descriptive Analytics Assignment Help

Introduction 

The main purpose of the report is to investigate different aspects of business analytics along with implication of these concepts in real world business. The report has been structured into two major sections, whereby first section has focused on general concepts of business analytics, its role in strategic value creation of business, use of analytics ecosystem in different functions of organizations, implementation of data mining and difference between data mining and business analytics. On the other hand, second section has allowed engagement with real analytics data to investigate real estate market conditions of Melbourne. 

Task 1

Purpose, importance and role of business analytics in creating strategic value and competitive advantage

Business analytics combines quantitative and statistical methods of analysis with data and information technology, with the purpose of offering support to management for interpreting data to make informed and well researched decisions for business process improvement (LaValle et al., 2011). It supports the notion of evidence based management and has applications in marketing, strategy, human resource management, finance and other functions of business. Based on its diverse implication, business analytics has an effect on functioning of whole organization. For instance, when decisions are guided by data and factual information, then results are witnessed in the form of efficiency improvement of whole organization. As noted by Holsapple, Lee-Post & Pakath (2014) the identification of emerging industry trends, effective customer assessment, effective costing and pricing mechanisms, accuracy in estimation of future customer value, designing effective marketing plans based on customer data and identification of best value practices of business are all contributing factors in fostering strategic success of an organization. The implementation of business analytics thus add in value creating activities of organization, which support strategic development of organization and enable achievement of competitive advantage by firm (Liebowitz, 2013). The value can be created by developing new product or by adding new channels through which interactions with customers are managed (Schläfke, Silvi & Möller, 2013). Business analytics make up the core factor for assuring future success of contemporary business and serve as source of competitive advantage. 

Analytics Ecosystem and its adoption in various industries 

The analytics ecosystem is comprised of different types of analytics which vary in terms of depth as well as scope of implementation. The descriptive analytics encompass business intelligence and data mining which helps in sorting big data into smaller portions (Lim, Chen & Chen, 2013). Both the real time data and historical data can make descriptive analytics and it is being used by around 90% organizations. The social analytics make up core example of descriptive analytics which are used for obtaining insight into customers’ trends to guide strategic actions, marketing and sales campaigns, production decisions as well as customer service policies and practices (McAfee et al., 2012). 

When business intelligence proves insufficient to answer specific business questions, then predictive analytics is used to make forecasting about future and it is solely probabilistic (Liebowitz, 2013). It is mainly used for guiding development of future strategies of business, such that future trends can be used in advantage of organization. Walmart and Amazon are considered to use predictive analytics for recognizing trends in customers demand, purchasing patterns as well as behavior of customers to devise their future course of actions (Davenport, Harris & Morison, 2010). 

The prescriptive analytics helps in creating prescriptions for business issues based on optimization of possible outcomes and uncertainties about future predictions (Schläfke, Silvi & Möller, 2013). It guides the business on how business achievements can be obtained, through implementation of scenario analysis techniques. It is mainly implied by large organizations for production optimization and making occasional decisions, as it is difficult to manage on daily basis. For instance, health care organizations use it for assuring effective drug development decisions and they find right patients for their drugs. 

Finally, exploratory analytics enable the exploration of data to find reasons of past events, with an aim of guiding future decision making (Holsapple, Lee-Post & Pakath, 2014). Likewise, predictive analytics, it also makes reliance on past trends to predict future. This approach is widely used in sales and marketing, production, customer services as well as strategic decisions of business (Lim, Chen & Chen, 2013). All of the analytics techniques are widely implemented in several industries, encompassing; health care sector, retail industry, IT sector and others.