Streamline your business with the magic of data analytics

With the rise of the internet, social media and the Internet Of Things over the last decade, businesses are faced with a plethora of data on existing but also prospective customers.

If used correctly, this data can become one of their biggest assets, unlocking a wealth of opportunities to understand individuals better, allowing for highly competitive experiences and actions leading to higher marketplace wins. Customers have started expecting more bespoke offerings in exchange for their data, and it is only through proper data utilisation that one will truly achieve this Utopia.

There are several ways to organically embark on creating a proper data-driven strategy, with the starting point being the customer. Who is your customer, what do they want, and how do you acquire more of these customers? With this in mind, you can start focusing on what data you have (or might need) in order for you to start answering these questions. One of the best and quickest ways to do this is through descriptive methods such as data consolidation, aggregation, and subsequent visualisation. This, for instance, might allow for visual means of identifying homogenous customer segments, and their corresponding behaviours, facilitating tailored offerings and experiences.

After a successful descriptive phase deployment, the business can evolve to incorporate machine learning, and AI on top of the newly-built robust data platform, allowing for individualised proactive strategies based on predictive AI outcomes.

Unfortunately, very few companies have up until now successfully managed to build the above strategies, leaving these opportunities severely underutilised.

There are numerous reasons for this underutilisation, but there are a few key factors that are shared by most organisation:

• Skilled resourceWith a significant shortage of skilled individuals who can take these overwhelming amounts of data, and translate that into something meaningful, companies have resorted to spending copious amounts of time and money on recruiting, upskilling as well as outsourcing these tasks in a race to be the first to a proper “data-driven customer strategy”.
• InfrastructureIn the past, a lot of organisations were hampered by the need to implement traditional and expensive on-premise infrastructure solutions, which then required a very niche skillset to build and manage.But with the advent of cloud-hosted solutions like Google Cloud Services, Amazon Web Services, and the like, this barrier has been removed. However, skilled resources are still required to deploy and maintain the cloud solutions.
• Time and costsIt’s all about money, and it costs quite a bit to recruit the correct resources and to set up the environment (although significantly less with cloud solutions). Unfortunately, neither of these happen overnight and these strategies typically take longer for the investments to yield proper returns, which impacts cashflow.

Data with no structure is meaningless, and it is only through skilled human resources that one can analyse and create structure to truly harness the power of the data. Getting to a stage where one can truly have a proper data driven strategy takes some time, and it is critical to start on a journey immediately.

With data analysis becoming one of the most crucial drivers of business success, developing a comprehensive and valuable course in this area became an urgent matter for us. With our outstanding team of Instructional Designers and expert knowledge partners, we’re close to finishing the Data Analytics & Visualisation online short course. It’ll teach students how to expertly capitialise on all the data they’re presented with. Interested? Email us and you’ll be the first to know when this course goes live.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: CORNE NAGEL

Corné is an AI Specialist with almost 20 years’ experience in the field. After completing his Masters Degree in Mathematical Statistics at the University of Stellenbosch, he entered the corporate world with the focus on credit risk, mobile lending and doing business in Africa through the implementation of Machine Learning and AI. He attended the Google Developers Launchpad in San Francisco, and mentors at various innovation hubs that assist AI startups and regularly speaks at AI summits and workshops. He currently resides in Malta where he works for Genii Technologies which focuses on the implementation of AI strategies in call centres and other projects, and has also been appointed to the AI Taskforce for the Maltese Government.