Business analytics has tremendous potential in the MEA region. Statistics reveal that revenue from big data and business analytics in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) has grown from $2.2 billion in 2017 to $3.2 billion in 2020.
Trends indicate an explosion in the adoption of analytics solutions among SMBs and at the enterprise level. A key reason is the next generation of wireless technology – 5G – the foundational technology for outstanding AI and Big Data use.
5G increases the bandwidth of connected devices and makes it possible to add more and more intelligent devices to the internet, known as the Internet of Things (IoT).
With the right analytics solutions, the data insights can optimise operational efficiency, automation and enable better decision-making in retail, healthcare, manufacturing, finance, and many others.
Benefits of business analytics to enterprise organisations
The benefits of business analytics impact everything from the bottom line to organisational efficiency. BA is a treasured asset for making strategic decisions.
Recent studies have shown that businesses have achieved 10% cost reductions and 8% revenue by applying data analysis. Organisations are even using predictive analytics to anticipate roadblocks and issues before they occur and become an obstacle. Thus, predictive analytics help us in taking preventive actions.
Challenges in business analytics implementation
A lack of quality data availability has hampered channel partnerships in the business analytics area in the past. As a result, businesses made decisions by excluding data, including instinct, relationships, and outdated best practices leading to undesired results.
Good quality data helps partners deliver a more personalised and engaging experience, resulting in higher chances of success in analytics and inspiring loyalty.
In addition, channel partners can benefit from implementing business analytics to increase employee satisfaction, monitor sales pipelines, and shorten project delivery times.
Strategies for successful business analytics implementation
There are a few strategies to optimise Business Analytics implementation that channel partners can utilise. When architecting IT infrastructures for analytics implementation, channel partners should start by evaluating the existing environment, considering security setups and data flow.
Partners should make sure the system is efficient and avoid data redundancy. In addition, the infrastructure must have the power to meet current needs and be scalable to meet expanding needs.
In addition, the data processing speed is a primary consideration that needs addressing when designing the system as accessing and processing the information in real-time or near real-time is sometimes crucial in meeting the business needs. The system should also be resilient and have failover mechanisms to avoid disrupting the business in case of software or hardware failures.
Pitfalls channel partners should avoid
For successful deployment of business analytics, a few basics must be in place.
The IT teams should partner with the business to identify their needs and understand their data.
A key reason for failure is often the misalignment of expectations. Therefore, business analytics in general and especially video analytics need to have a clearly defined scope and expectations of having a satisfactory outcome.
Channel partners have to spend enough time understanding the customer’s needs to translate them into well-configured deployments and ensure the analysed data creates maximum value for the customer.
Therefore, knowledge sharing and assistance in a pre-ordering phase are crucial. Finally, the implementation phase is the second focus area where every component of the solution, from the software to the hardware, must be selected to ensure that the total solution is well designed and fully compatible.
Open platforms are usually the safe choice for any business as customer’s needs may change over time. So, by choosing a flexible yet reliable platform, customers will not have to worry about system expansions or adding new technologies.
Tackling skill challenges in the MEA market
For the MEA, as with any market, sharing the knowledge and expertise, providing training and certifications are the key areas of investments for the analytics business stream to succeed. The vendors especially, have a crucial role in spreading the knowledge to ensure that the people understand the technology and use it in a relevant and responsible way.
