Using operational analytics is the most streamlined way to improve business efficiency and gain insight into how your company is performing. 
Data is used by practically every company in the world. At the core of every marketing plan, there are analytics to support the plan.
By using data integration processes like ETL and reverse ETL, you can optimize and operationalize this information. Operational analytics are supported by data mining, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.
To make your data actionable, you’ll need a skilled team of business and data analysts, as well as the right tools, such as Tableau and Looker. For this reason, operational analytics are typically reserved for larger organizations that can accommodate these resources.
Over time though, these high-tech metrics could become more easily accessible. To learn more about operational analytics and how they are used, continue reading below!
Analyze Data Faster
One reason that businesses use operational analytics is because it allows them to analyze data faster.
By definition, operational analytics are metrics that have been automated and organized according to a business’ preferences. This data is provided in real time, which makes it possible for workers to make faster decisions and improve workflow.
For instance, if your company is in urgent need of an upcoming campaign for the holidays, you’ll need data from previous holiday seasons that your business was operating. Instead of having to dig through a long list of records and manually finding the metrics you need, you can have a third party application like Salesforce do it for you.
Having analytics in real time also allows you to spot mistakes quicker. Perhaps you’re wasting a significant portion of your marketing budget on an audience that isn’t converting well. You would want to notice this issue immediately, not at the end of the quarter, or worse, the end of the year.
Any company can improve their bottom line using operational analytics. One study actually found that improving operations can lead to an increase of $117 billion in profitability for global organizations.
Better Customer Experience
Companies can use operational analytics to improve their sales and marketing. However, they can also be used to improve the customer experience. When you have data in real time, it makes it so much easier to respond to issues with customers.
For instance, if you’re running an e-commerce company and discover that a ton of people are abandoning their carts on your site, you can use operational analytics to find out why.
You can find out exactly at what point these users are exiting out. You can see what items are being abandoned the most. You can also check if there are any technological issues on your site that are interfering with the customer experience.
After finding out what’s wrong, your business can address the issue immediately. It may just be a simple edit to the coding of your site. It might be something more severe.
Either way, the earlier you diagnose the issue, the faster you can fix it. The last thing you want is to find out about an issue weeks or months later.
With this data, your customer support team can be proactive with their work. For example, if they notice that a particular customer was struggling to checkout, they can send that customer a personalized text message asking if they need help. You can even have a real operator call the customers and guide them through the checkout process.
This type of customer service can be very impactful to your overall sales. Consumers want to shop with brands that care about them. Operational analytics allow you to care for your customers better.
Increased Productivity
Analytics can be made operational through many different processes and systems. However, the most common processes used are ETL and reverse ETL.
With traditional ETL, data is extracted from various sources, transformed to the proper format, then loaded into a data warehouse. Reverse ETL is essentially the same process but backward.
Reverse ETL in particular improves productivity drastically in the workplace. This is because this process loads all of your data into a third party application, where other members of your company can access it and share insights with each other.
With all of your data synchronized amongst your workforce, you can feel confident in your team’s ability to perform. Furthermore, you can better track the performance of your employees individually. Without annoying obstacles like issues accessing data, you can see what your workers are truly made of.
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