Addressing Actionable Analytics
Our customers are increasingly discussing Actionable Embedded Analytics—visuals that highlight key business areas requiring attention and provide validation, alongside a quick way to execute automated actions while maintaining the necessary checks and balances performed by employees. Achieving this goes beyond just data and visualisation; it requires flexibility at all levels of the technology stack. Your product manager, if successful, will likely seek more of the same kind of analytics.
Requirements for Success
To support this, you need:
- A semantic layer
- Data-level privacy and security
- Flexible report building
- Data cleanup and loading
- Query performance
Expertise Needed
Developing a full-fledged, flexible analytics module demands expertise in various areas, including:
- Multithreading
- Memory management
- Indexing algorithms and methods
- Custom query language development
This skill set is often not aligned with those needed for business-oriented transactional systems. For a deeper dive, read our article, "The Data Technology Stack your Customers Want is a Difficult One."
Cost of Failure
Even with the right expertise, unforeseen practical issues can stretch your project plan in unexpected ways. Discovering 9 months into the project that it will take twice the estimated time or is unsalvageable is not in your best interest.
Direct Costs
Based on our internal development history, building a robust, flexible, and well-tested analytics system requires substantial investment, equivalent to several man-decades of effort. This serious cost could undermine the business case for the entire analytics module.
Opportunity Costs
Actionable data and analytics are in high demand, with the market requiring increased efficiency at all levels. Missing out on satisfying your customers now and charging for it can be detrimental. For more on this value proposition, check out our articles "What B2B SaaS Customers Really Want from Analytics and Dashboards" and this Forbes article on the topic.
Conclusion
Choose a strategy that fits your needs for integration, branding, automation, and cost. Avoid unnecessary risks for your business. Whether you decide to build or buy, our white paper is available to all subscribers to ensure you have all the information you need to succeed.
Curious about how we can help you generate beyond your expected ROI on analytics? Reach out to us — we'd love to talk!