MODULE 1: OVERVIEW OF BIG DATA AND BUSINESS ANALYTICS
Introduction
Everyone who runs a business would tell you that making decisions is the most important task in
the role. Business managers are always faced with questions on what to sell, how much to sell, to whom,
through what mode. A manager or entrepreneur has to know how much it would need to make his or her
product, how to cut down on expenses, how to market the product to customers, and when the business
can be expanded. Decisions do not just come about on their own. They are a product of analysis based on
the information available to the decision maker. Business managers have always gathered information to
base their decisions on. But with the development of computers which can store and process large
amounts of data, business analytics began to offer more possibilities for decision makers. In this module,
we will learn more about the role of business analytics, big data, and business intelligence.
Learning Objectives
After completing this course, you should be able to:
1. Discuss the basic concepts on business intelligence, big data and business analytics;
2. Trace the evolution of business analytics; and
3. Give examples of big data service providers
1.1. Business Analytics and Business Intelligence
In the era of knowledge economy, getting the right information to decision makers at the right
time is critical to their business success, and one such attempt includes the growing use of business
analytics (Min, 2017). Business analytics is one of the most talked-about topics in the field of business and
information technology. And as expected, business analytics is becoming one of the most sought-after
courses in the academe.
Business Analytics (BA)
What goes through your mind when you hear the word Business Analytics? Below are some of the
definitions of business analytics.
1. Business Analytics is the art of assembling the data gathered through Business Intelligence in such a
way that it can be analyzed by people. It is comprised of the tools with which people can disseminate
the data that’s been collected, to produce meaningful conclusions (Fulton, 2013).
2. Business Analytics is the use of data, information technology, statistical analysis, quantitative
methods, and mathematical or computer-based models to help managers gain improved insight
about business operations and make better, factbased decisions (Evans, 2012).
3. Business analytics is comprised of solutions used to build analysis models and simulations to create
scenarios, understand realities and predict future states including data mining, predictive analytics,
applied analytics and statistics ( https://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/business-analytics).
4. Business Analytics is the study of data through statistical and operations analysis, the formation of
predictive models, application of optimization techniques, and the communication of these results
to customers, business partners, and college executives (Galleto, 2018).
5. Business analytics refers to a broad use of various quantitative techniques such as statistics, data
mining, optimization tools, and simulation supported by the query and reporting mechanism to assist
decision makers in making more informed decisions within a closed-loop framework seeking
continuous process improvement through monitoring and learning (Min, 2017).
Business Intelligence (BI)
Now, let's look at what Business Intelligence (BI) is.
1. Business Intelligence as the process of collecting information from all sources to make data-driven
decisions in an organization (Fulton, 2013, Galleto, 2018).
2. Business Intelligence as the process of combining aspects of reporting, monitoring and alerting,
dashboards, scorecards, and ad hoc query data exploration (Capistrano, 2018, Galleto, 2018)
Activity
• Watch "Introduction to Big Data and Business Analytics" by Dr. Eric Capistrano
• Read articles by Fulton (2013), Min (2017), and Galleto (2018).
Study Questions
1. After learning about the different definitions of BA and BI, can you now compare/differentiate BI and
BA?
2. Galleto (2018) mentioned that "While Business Intelligence answers what happened, Business
Analytics answers why it happened and whether it will happen again". What are your thoughts on
this?
1.2. Origin of Business Analytics
From ancient times, people have had this need to predict the future. They have used crude
methods like stones and sticks to project how much crops they were going to harvest or how much they
were going to yield. In this section, we shall trace the development of business analytics from the ancient
to the modern time
Activity
• Read an article on "The Origin and Evolution of Business Analytics" by Hokey Min (2017).
• Read an article on "The Evolution of Business Analytics" by Jess Hasson (2015)
Study Question
Trace the evolution of business analytics by writing down the features of analytics (i.e., its
application, tools used) as employed in the following eras
1.3. Big Data and Business Analytics
We have already defined Business Analytics and Business Intelligence. This time, let us learn
another concept related to BA which is the Big Data. So, what is big data? SAS defines big data as a term
that describes the large volume of structured and unstructured data which can be analyzed for insights
needed for better decisions and strategic business moves. IBM, on the other hand, refers to it as data sets
whose size or type is beyond the ability of traditional relational databases to capture, manage, and process
the data with low-latency.
What is the difference? Business Analytics is said to focus on financial and operational analytics
of the business while big data involved machine automation to analyze data. The importance of big data
is not on how much data you have, but what you do with those data.
There are four aspects that define big data which are volume, variety, velocity and veracity.
1. Volume is about how huge the data sets are.
2. Variety includes how many pieces of data we gather together from social media data,
government data, financial data, banking data, all sorts of transactions all combined together
to make one or more profiles for your customers.
3. Velocity is the speed of data.
4. Veracity means that there is a lot of uncertainty, meaning, there is all of these different data
coming together, but the problem is we don’t know what to do with them
Activity
• Watch "Introduction to Big Data and Business Analytics" by Dr. Eric Capistrano
• Read the article "Difference between Big data and Business Analytics" from
https://talentedge.in/articles/difference-big-data-business-analytics
1.4 Big Data Analytics Providers
A long list of big data service providers which are now available in the market can be found in the
Internet.
Activity
• Watch "Introduction to Big Data and Business Analytics" by Dr. Eric Capistrano
• Read the articles "100 Most Promising Big Data Solution Providers - 2017 and "Forbes Cloud
100: 10 Big Data Analytics Providers That Matter"
Study Question
As an exercise, look in the web for examples of data service providers. List them down. What
sorts of services do these big data providers sell to their clients?
References
100 Most Promising Big Data Solution Providers - 2017. Available from
https://talentedge.in/articles/difference-big-data-business-analytics
Big Data. What it is and Why it Matters. Available from https://www.sas.com/en_ph/insights/big-
data/what-is-big-data.html
Business Analytics. Available from https://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/businessanalytics Capistrano, E.
2018. "Introduction to Big Data and Business Analytics".
https://networks.upou.edu.ph/11628/introduction-to-big-data-and-business-analytics-prof-erik-paolo-
capistrano/?cn-reloaded=1
