Complete Guide to Choosing Data Analytics Software in 2024

With the aid of technology, businesses are collecting and storing more and more data. To make use of the data to gain useful insights and plan for the future, data analytics software is both transformative and necessary. It was estimated that by 2022, worldwide revenues for big data and analytics will be about $260 billion.

The current market offers a wide variety of tools and platforms that all offer similar, but differentiated features to fit any business’ needs and support their business goals. From cloud-based platforms to fully integrated business intelligence tools, Automation and AI technology are empowering companies, both big and small, to utilise data in insightful and measurable ways.

Data analysis is the process of cleaning, inspecting, transforming and modelling data to be used for discovery and decision-making. When data analytics and Automation are working seamlessly hand-in-hand, businesses have a competitive advantage as they can use valuable information to help enhance business processes and support their growth into the future.

What is Data Analytics Software?

Data analytics software combines statistics and analysis to use and transform data to provide essential insights. Along with the ability to clean, process and store data, data analytics software can create visual representations and reports for stakeholders to digest the information quickly.

What Are the Benefits of Data Analysis Software?

Data analysis can help all departments of a business, from marketing to sales and operations and finance teams. The technology can either replace or work together with human resources to optimise business practices. With data analysis software, your business can achieve:

Lower Operational Costs:

• With the use of Automation and artificial intelligence, the company can reduce its costs in manufacturing, production, and daily operations. Data analysis can provide insight into which business processes are working well and those that are costing more than they are worth. By measuring operational effectiveness, businesses can use such tools to cut costs.

Increased Efficiency:

• A workforce that feels informed with quantifiable data that provide different viewpoints for analysis rather than guessing with one view from limited data feels more empowered to both make decisions, to feel confident in their actions and monitor their progress. It also significantly helps with top-level buy-in to new ideas for creativity and innovation. With faster decisions and a more supported team, employee retention and customer satisfaction are also sure to increase.

Promote Brand Loyalty:

• To establish the best customer relationships, personalisation is vital. With the ability to accurately target and nurture your customers through the business cycle, they’ll feel like the business is tailored towards their needs, and therefore, they will be more loyal. Data analytics software can give you the insights you need to segment your audience accurately and better than ever, providing the right product, at the right time, to the right audience for the least cost.

Set Pricing Models:

• With data and analysis, businesses can set the right pricing model to maximise revenues. For example, according to McKinsey & Company, a 1% increase in prices can result in an 8.7% increase in operating profits. Data analysis software can look at mass amounts of data for different products to turn the purchasing history into information that can be used to determine the customer’s willingness to pay.

Implement Business Strategies:

• When a business wants to try something new and create business process improvement, metrics are essential to assess the results. Data analytics software can help visualise the changes into reports which automatically update data in real-time to support agility to set the strategy, monitor, and adjust it.

Top 5 Software Tools

There are a multitude of data analytics software in the marketplace, which can be overwhelming when trying to decide which is right for your business, but it shouldn’t have to be this way!

Here’s a look at a few of the top data analytics tools and their various features.

1. SolveXia

SolveXia is a human analytical data automation tool that provides knowledgeable teams with resources and predictive forecasting models to make informed decisions and expedite business processes.

Solvexia helps the teams in many industries, including Banking, Insurance, Travel and more, to be able to work faster and smarter with its many features. It also provides non-finance employees with the ability to analyse the data because the digitisation stack provides data in multiple formats for reports and the communication of data.

The tool can effortlessly collect data, quickly map and cleanse the data, before turning the data instantly into high-value insights, analyse and reports.

Its main features include:

• Building business processes
• Risk metric analytics
• Expense analysis dashboards
• Business reports
• Trend analysis and modelling

With a scalable, cloud-based platform, SolveXia allows your business to be more adaptable and self-sufficient.

2. Alteryx

Alteryx is a self-service data analytics software tool that can automate repetitive tasks, deploy and manage analytical models, and scale with your organisation.

Alteryx’s tools provide insights for various teams from operations to marketing to sales. The advanced analytics, BI tools, technology integrations and data preparations mean that no coding is required, but all insights can still be understood.

3. Automation Anywhere

Automation Anywhere is an RPA tool that can take enterprise resource planning (ERP) and automate its functions.

For example, with Automation Anywhere, you can use robotic process automation to manage financial processes, CRM and supply chain procedures.

RPA software is best intended for low value, repetitive, back-office tasks that do not require analysis or human interference. It saves businesses and staff a lot of time and cost with mundane tasks while eliminating human error.

4. UiPath

UiPath is a robotic process automation (RPA) tool that offers customisable and integrative tools that fit into your current IT stack. It allows for the usage of existing artificial intelligence (AI) programming or the integration of your own. Both government agencies and commercial businesses use the software to make their business processes more efficient.

5. Workiva

Designed as a cloud platform that is geared towards the financial industry, Workiva helps accounting, finance and regulatory teams with a powerful technology that provides reporting and helps to reduce compliance risk.

Workiva connects data from multiple sources (great for legacy systems) and allows for advanced SQL scripting for complex data transformations.

Alternative Data Analytics Software Options

Business intelligence software uses past data to offer assistance for current decision-making. On the other hand, analytics uses predictive capabilities to draw inferences for the future. For business intelligence software, here are some of the most popular platforms being used:

1. Sisense

Sisense is a data housing solution and a user-friendly business intelligence software designed for anyone in the organisation to manage, analyse and visualise large sets of data without the need for IT support. ’It’s best at bringing data together from marketing platforms such as Adwords and Google Analytics.

The platform can prepare and analyse data in a secure environment that is cloud-based. Its primary use is to model scenarios and forecast results.

2. Tableau

Tableau is a BI platform that provides a business intelligence solution for individual analysts or entire teams. With Tableau, you can create customised dashboards for customers and provide them with only the information they need.

The platform is designed for data discovery and data visualisation and works excellent with data from MS Excel, Google Analytics and Salesforce. It is used across any device, including desktop, mobile, browser or embedded into an application.

3. Hitachi Vantara’s Pentah

Pentaho is a data integration tool that delivers IoT (Innovation of Things) insights and integrates data for real-time analysis and predictive modelling. The platform requires little to no IT intervention to empower business users with visual analysis.

The Bottom Line

When it comes to choosing the right data analytics software for your business, you can start by placing the options into the following categories: robotic process automation tools, personal analytical automation tools such as SolveXia, and business intelligence automation tools.

Depending on your workforce, the need for such tools, and the regulatory environment in which your business exists, you can then narrow down the list to see what is right for you. Of course, your team’s size, the tool’s scalability, and the cost will be essential factors to consider when choosing your data analytics software.

But, no matter what you choose, you can know that your business will undoubtedly benefit from data analytics software.