What is Operational Analytics?

Operational Analytics is a specific term within analytics that refers to the category of
business analytics that focuses on measuring the existing and real-time
operations of business.

Through the use of tools designed for data mining and data aggregation, businesses
can reap the benefits of being able to make better decisions because of the
transparency that results from using operational analytics. So if you’ve ever heard of
things like “Real-time Reporting,” or “Actionable Analytics” you’ve heard of Operational
Analytics.

Being able to access real-time data with total transparency into customer behaviors
and business processes is paramount in today’s business world. Only the most up-to-
date data will enable business owners to specifically see the function of their day-to-
day operations. After which, appropriate adjustments can be made to enhance
customer satisfaction and the bottom line.

How is Operational Analytics Used in Business Today?

Operational analytics uses statistical analysis extensively and this includes fact-based
management and predictive and explanatory modeling to drive decision making.
Therefore, it is closely associated with management science. This type of analytics
could drive fully automated decisions or may be utilized as input for management
decisions.

Business intelligence involves querying, reporting, real time push “alerts” and online
analytical processing (OLAP). These processes are alert tools that can be used to
address questions like where the problems are, what occurred, how many instances,
how frequently and what needs to happen to fix them. Operational analytics can
respond to questions like “Why are these things happening?”, “What will happen if
these trends persist?”, and it can predict what will happen next as well as optimize to
determine what the best results are that could transpire in the future.

The following are some industry examples of how operational analytics are used
today:

• Banks use operational analytics to distinguish among their customers based on

usage, credit risk and other features.
o The data is then used to match characteristics of customers with suitable
product offerings.
• In manufacturing, operational analytics could trigger preventive maintenance to
identify potential problems before they happen.
o With this data, maintenance or the manufacturer can be alerted to the
fact that service is required.

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The Future of Operational Analytics

Businesses must operate in the moment to maintain their competitive advantage. To

do this they need fresh operational insights. Therefore, the future of operational
analytics is bright because to some degree, virtually every company is a tech
company. This means they absolutely must work with data and they definitely need
professionals to support them in using data to make vital decisions towards the growth
and sustainability of their organizations.

The demand for cloud-based or on-demand operational analytics solutions is growing

because of their time-efficient and cost-effective features. In Small and Medium
Enterprises, the adoption of these platforms is especially high.

Between 2016 and 2021, the growth for operational analytics platforms is projected
between $4.65 Billion and $10.93 Billion. This will be at a Compound Annual Growth
Rate of 18.6 percent during the projection period.

Major growth drivers behind this staggering explosion of data are resulting from the
advent of IoT-enabled devices. They increase the need for processing and operations
control and optimization, advanced data management strategy adoption, and growing
concentration on market and competitive intelligence.

Use Cases in the Business World

Below are 5 common operational analytics use cases:

1. Visualizing the Environment

o Having the ability to visualize the application environment and recognize
the dependencies is a vital foundation for the other use cases below.
2. Fast Troubleshooting
o Having the ability to use generated data from an application environment
to rapidly identify the root cause of a problem is of utmost importance for
businesses in which their revenue source depends on these kinds of
applications.
3. Prioritize Opportunities and Issues
o Once the root cause of an application performance problem is isolated,
determining how to prioritize the issues is the next step.
4. Analyze Impact on the Business
o This is a method of quantifying the value of the work put in by operations
professionals to ensure application environments operate as effortlessly
as possible.
5. Create Action Plans
o This is all about taking the right action once the data is at your fingertips.

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The Services are In Hot Demand

Among all operational analytics services, professional consulting services are

projected to have the highest demand. This is because of the escalating need of
analytics software solutions across industries.

Major business functions for which operational analytics is used includes marketing,
information technology, finance, sales and human resources. Using operational
analytics for marketing is projected to significantly increase in the coming years.

In-demand Jobs for Operational Analytics

• Operations Research Analysts

o These analysts are sophisticated problem-solvers who use sophisticated
techniques like data mining, optimization, mathematical modeling and
statistical analysis to develop solutions to assist businesses and
organizations in operating more efficiently.
• Data Scientists
o Data scientists work closely with databases and high-performance
coding and computing, machine learning and parallel processing.
• Sales Operations Analysts
o The primary role of a sales operations analysts is to support the sales
operations team. This includes the collection and evaluation of data
associated with sales performance and providing management with key
insights and data concerning sales operations challenges.
• Data Business Analysts
o A data business analyst uses generated data to come up with insights
regarding the business. It is appealing to individuals who are looking for
a combination of data analysis and business-related tasks. The ability to
see the big picture and inquisitiveness are typical characteristics among
individuals in this field.
o Research on analytics careers revealed some amount of uniformity in
job descriptions. For example, each career path calls for individuals with
the capacity to work in a dynamic and fast-paced environments. An
analytical perspective is necessary as well as the ability to communicate
exceptionally in both the verbal and written forms. Analytics specialists
must be driven self-starters, who are capable of producing meaningful
and organized products, with knowledge of content and project
management tools.

Interesting Statistics

• A recent study revealed that development in operations via the use of data can
assist in raising annual profits as much as $117 billion worldwide. This
represents a sharp increase in comparison to customer analytics that drives

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 roughly $38 billion in profits. An improvement in the bottom line indicates you
are capable of scaling your business, regardless of its size.
• A recent survey found that 70 percent of companies have begun focusing on
operations processes rather than consumer processes.

Overall Operational Analytics is still a very widely under-utilized phrase in the world of
business analytics.

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