Optimizing Small Business Decision-Making Utilizing Business Analytics

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18 May, 2015, 11:45 GMT

-- Frost & Sullivan white paper uncovers how small businesses can expand data knowledge and profitability through the use of affordable Business Analytics solutions

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California, May 18, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Every business, no matter how large or small, runs on data. Since the mid-1990's, large enterprises have used data warehouses to combine and sift through mass data sets in order to create more meaningful subsets, displays, and reports, via business analytics. As a result, these companies are able to make informed decisions about the markets, processes, and products as well as the capability to assess the impact of such decisions on their profitability. Unlike the former, small businesses have had to settle for a more ubiquitous and tedious analytics tool to gather and analyze their data: spreadsheets. This analytical process, though limited, has been the only viable data analysis and decision-making solution for small businesses, until recently.

Frost & Sullivan's recently published white paper titled, Optimizing Business Decision-Making Utilizing Business Analytics, briefly discusses the evolution of 1990's-era Business Intelligence (BI) into today's more comprehensive Business Analytics (BA) and introduces a set of business analytics solutions that are specifically designed, scaled and priced for smaller businesses.

Click here to download the whitepaper, or visit: http://bit.ly/1L3Xhf5

As computers, databases, spreadsheets and the Internet became available, the pace of businesses accelerated. As a result, decision makers found that the amount of data available to analyze and make informed decisions was too much to be evaluated by a sole person. Initially, the implementation of Business Intelligence (BI) systems offered the capability to structure data and rules, answering "how" and "why" questions about the state of the business. Unfortunately, BI could not offer a look into the future of what might happen or predictive analyses. Today, Business analytics enables an organization to determine which data sets are relevant to a particular decision and makes those data sets accessible to every level of decision maker in the organization. BA confers a substantial competitive advantage on companies that adopt and use it.

"Large enterprises have been able to create and fund dedicated staffs of data analysts and scientists to support their analytics capabilities, an approach that was out of reach for smaller businesses," said Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan Consumer Communications Services Research Manager Mike Jude. "Smaller businesses have the same need for data and analytics. Their inability to support substantial overheads, led to dependency on the use of multiple spreadsheets or single-function desktop tools that store different data sets and deliver conflicting analyses; an analytic disparity which is especially harmful."

In this analysis, Frost & Sullivan reveals how business analytics are no longer limited to large enterprises and discusses how IBM's set of business analytics solutions enables collaboration, business intelligence, predictive analysis and performance management, specifically designed for small businesses.

"IBM's Business Analytics Midmarket portfolio delivers a scalable, comprehensive set of solutions which enables smaller businesses to achieve a highly-capable advanced analytics infrastructure," said Jude. "With IBM's robust ecosystem of Business Partners, a successful implementation of the Business Analytics Midmarket solution set is ensured, even for the smallest of companies."

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Media Contact:

Clarissa Castaneda
Corporate Communications – North America
P: +1 210.477.8481
F: +1 210.348.1003
clarissa.castaneda@frost.com
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