{Zoom in: Business Intelligence} The new evolved BI with augmented analytics

This expert says augmented analytics, with its Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning blend, is the hottest trend in today’s Business Intelligence (BI).

For decades, organisations have focussed on collecting, managing, and analysing data and maintaining various dashboards. Companies now have access to data-driven tools and strategies that allow them to learn more about their customers and themselves than ever before, but not everyone is taking advantage of them.

BI is already a game-changer that can help businesses use their data to their advantage by presenting the otherwise unusable pile of data into an understandable and interpretable form.

But the biggest challenge for organisations today is to rapidly parse through enormous amounts of data and drive out the information that will deliver key insights and enable making more informed business decisions.

According to a Seagate study, the global data sphere is estimated to include 175 zettabytes of data by 2025.

This is where Augmented BI steps in. Augmented BI leverages both augmented analytics and BI. Augmented analytics uses tech like machine learning and AI to prepare data, generate insights, and clarify those insights to augment the way organisations explore and analyse data in analytics and BI platforms.

The Tech Panda spoke to Naren Vijay, Executive Vice President, Growth, Lumenore, a cloud-based BI and analytics platform that delivers organisational intelligence by sifting data from any business application.

Naren Vijay

As data solutions are expected to be in the driver’s seat for the next few years, businesses that invest in a system that allows them to stay ahead of the curve will have a competitive edge

Vijay points out that the most prominent challenge organisations are facing is being equipped to handle massive amounts of data.

“We are living in an era that is driven by data. The ability to develop productive and cost-effective solutions to bridge the gap between data and analytics will drive the future. An increasing number of organisations are expected to rely on BI technologies to quickly make accurate, data-driven decisions,” he says.

“Augmented analytics, which provides automated data discovery using a statistical machine learning approach, narrative insights with the use of self-explanatory natural language, and the ease of use of the analytics platform is expected to drive the growth in the industry,” he explains.

“As data solutions are expected to be in the driver’s seat for the next few years, businesses that invest in a system that allows them to stay ahead of the curve will have a competitive edge,” he adds.

Going Above & Beyond with Augmented BI Platforms

Viyay says that augmented BI platforms like Lumenore can help organisations go beyond reporting, querying and diagnostic analytics.

“BI platforms, powered by modern solutions like AI and machine learning, help an organisation move towards business excellence easily. Combined with unique propositions like data universe and advanced analytics, augmented BI platforms like Lumenore drive informed decision-making across the organisation with end-to-end support,” he says.

“Rather than relying on data scientists to analyse isolated datasets and draw relevant insights, an organisation can use augmented BI platforms to automate data preparation, structuring, and analysis. It helps in democratising data by building citizen data scientists in an organisation,” he adds.

BI platforms, powered by modern solutions like AI and machine learning, help an organisation move towards business excellence easily

“By doing so, every employee in an organisation can harness the power of data and insights resulting in making data-driven decisions across the organisation. Additionally, augmented BI platforms provide automated features helping professionals to spend less time searching for data and insights,” he explains.

Lumenore’s anti-dashboard ideology places more importance on intelligence development than dashboards. The ability of BI tools to organise data, prepare it for analysis, perform queries and come back with visualised data and business insights helps an organisation move beyond traditional results like reporting and querying.

How BI Helps in Organisational Decision-Making

As the amount of data generated by organisations has grown exponentially, it is essential to understand that BI helps companies with relevant insights based on current and historical data, says Vijay.

Even though data and analytics provide facts and information, it is not enough for the businesses today to survive in this volatile market

“BI uses business analytics and consolidated and engineered data for efficiency in the decision-making process. Even though data and analytics provide facts and information, it is not enough for the businesses today to survive in this volatile market. A BI platform analyses the data to generate insights that can be used while making actionable business decisions,” he reveals.

“In addition, BI considers future trends, expected demand, consumer behaviour, and other factors to generate relevant, actionable insights for a business,” he adds.

Significance of Conversational Analytics & Predictive Analytics in BI

BI analytics involves both conversational analytics and predictive analytics, which are gaining much importance, giving rise to several new trends.

Conversational analytics helps an organisation analyse data, understand the context and extract the correct information rapidly for every user without technical proficiency.

By utilising ML and NLP solutions, it can provide insights in faster thereby improving productivity

“It removes the bottlenecks in information gathering and provides access to personalised, actionable insights to make successful decisions within seconds. By utilising ML and NLP solutions, it can provide insights in faster thereby improving productivity,” says Vijay.

For instance, using Lumenore’s Ask Me module, the user can ask business queries in simple English and receive answers instantly.

Predictive analytics uses historical data which is combined with statistical modelling, data mining techniques, machine learning, and big data analysis, to provide predictions about the future outcome.

“It helps users to determine whether a change would help them lower risks, enhance operations, or boost revenue. It helps businesses to plan, strategise and make decisions favouring future needs and trends,” he explains.

According to the Augmented Analytics Global Market Report 2022 published by The Business Research Company, the size of the augmented analytics market is projected to grow to US$21.70 billion in 2026 at a CAGR of 22.90%. As per the forecast, the growing demand for the adoption of BI tools is what is driving the growth of the market.

Certainly, an area of interest if business expansion is desired.

Navanwita Bora Sachdev

Navanwita is the editor of The Tech Panda who also frequently publishes stories in news outlets such as The Indian Express, Entrepreneur India, and The Business Standard