Analytics are a part of IT infrastructure, and is used to drive decision making for all business practices, processes, and operations. From simple forecasting to predictive analytics, the insight gained from analytics can be utilized to secure a competitive advantage in the market. This requires extensive research into market conditions, competitor analysis, macroeconomics, pricing, trend analysis, matching internal strengths with external opportunities, and consumer expectations, and the accelerated pace of change in technological advancements in products and services.
Analytics are used to drive R&D, Finance Decisions, marketing, human capital planning, operations planning & management, logistics, and other critical functions and therefore must be properly adequately funded and considered a major investment. In fact, statistic shows a forecast of business analytics services spending worldwide from 2015 to 2019 to be in excess of $101B. In 2017 alone, spending on business analytics software services is predicted to reach 77.3 billion U.S. dollars. See Statista Research, 2019.
When selecting a business intelligence platform (BI), many organizations put too much focus on the cost of the BI software without accounting for long-term labor investment which ranges from 2 to 35 times higher than the BI software costs. In other words, labor costs for expertise may average 90% of the total cost of BI ownership.
