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A few weeks ago, I bought a bookcase at a furniture store, the one with the distinctive blue and yellow logo. It was a simple, two-shelf bookcase that I thought I could whip together without a problem. Things started out ok: I opened the box, got out the eight pieces, separated the screws and I was ready to go! But as soon as I put the first two pieces together, things got hectic. Enter my two toddlers. First, one took the screws I needed. Next, the other one made off with one of the shelves. While both clearly wanted to “help” me, the big issue was that they obviously didn’t know what they were doing, couldn’t read instructions, and didn’t know how to use the tools needed to assemble the bookcase. What should have taken 30 minutes ended up taking an hour and a half!
While spending three times as much time on something is acceptable for a small home project, it certainly doesn’t work in today’s business environment. In fact, business executives need make decisions and execute on them more quickly than ever before. But with organizations collecting more data from an ever-growing number of channels, executives are challenged with taking advantage of this “Big Data” without getting left behind in today’s lightning-fast speed of business.
A common approach taken by companies to harness all this Big Data is to hire more data scientists. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, these highly skilled data scientists are also highly expensive, commanding salaries of more than $300,000 annually. Most companies just don’t have that kind of money to throw around these days, especially for “somebody that doesn't have anyone else working for them,” as Tom Davenport, a Harvard professor, noted in the article.
Alteryx thinks the solution to the ‘Big Data problem’ isn’t hiring more data scientists, it’s making Big Data easier to use. Think back to the old adage: “Keep It Simple, Stupid!” also known as K.I.S.S.
What if you didn’t need to know complex programming or coding to make sense of data and produce analysis? What if you could get the data you need without IT intervention and constraints? What if you didn’t need to jump from tool to tool to tool in the analytical process and you could analyze all your data sources in a single solution? All of these things make Big Data easier to use and access – and help you get from business problem to business solution in a fraction of the time required with today’s analytics status quo.
Another reason making analytics simpler is important is the fact that more and more people in your organization are going to be accessing them in the very near future. According to a recent Gartner report, analytics will touch more than half of every organization’s potential users by 2014. That’s next year. This means that analytics will not only be used by analysts and data scientists, but also by decision-makers in business units and on the front-lines of your organization – so they can implement changes in near-instantaneous fashion.
Accessibility starts with the simplification of the analytics process. Making it easy to access, integrate, analyze, and consume analytics will allow your organization to stay ahead of the curve. You’ll be able to get analytics into the hands of decision-makers before the business opportunity passes you by. And faster onboarding with less downtime will also equate to higher returns and revenues. Simple, isn’t it?
To find out how simply it is to get the analytic answers you need join me and Bloor Research for the February 12th webinar ; The New Normal: Predictive Power on the Front Lines.
Matthew Madden
Sr. Product Marketing Manager.
