Question

describe two different types of analytics and evaluate how each could be used as a part of solution to business problem with reference to one real world case study

Answer 1

Descriptive Analytics

Descriptive analytics answers the question of what happened. Let us bring an example from ScienceSoft’s practice: having analyzed monthly revenue and income per product group, and the total quantity of metal parts produced per month, a manufacturer was able to answer a series of ‘what happened’ questions and decide on focus product categories.

Descriptive analytics juggles raw data from multiple data sources to give valuable insights into the past. However, these findings simply signal that something is wrong or right, without explaining why. For this reason, our data consultants don’t recommend highly data-driven companies to settle for descriptive analytics only, they’d rather combine it with other

Predictive analytics

Predictive analytics tells what is likely to happen. It uses the findings of descriptive and diagnostic analytics to detect clusters and exceptions, and to predict future trends, which makes it a valuable tool for forecasting. Check ScienceSoft’s case study to get details on how advanced data analytics allowed a leading FMCG company to predict what they could expect after changing brand positioning.

Predictive analytics belongs to advanced analytics types and brings many advantages like sophisticated analysis based on machine or deep learning and proactive approach that predictions enable. However, our data consultants state it clearly: forecasting is just an estimate, the accuracy of which highly depends on data quality and stability of the situation, so it requires careful treatment and continuous optimization.