Adopting Business Analytics to Leverage Enterprise Data Assets

Abstract

In today’s rapidly changing business environment, advances in information and communication technologies are happening at a very fast pace. As a result, firms are under constant pressure to quickly adapt, be competitive, and identify new business opportunities. Also, the amount of data collected by organizations today is growing at an exponential rate and includes structured as well as new types of large and real-time data across a broad range of industries such as streaming, geospatial, social media, or sensor-generated data. Enterprise data have become an invaluable strategic asset. Many organizations are using modern Business Analytics (BA) to extract new insights and the maximum possible value from these data assets, which will enable them to make timely and accurate decisions. In this paper, we briefly describe business analytics and discuss how leading world class organizations are adopting it and the technology environments that make it relatively easy and inexpensive and, the subsequent competitive benefits they have achieved. In addition, we will report some findings from surveys of executives, managers, and professionals across industries about the use of analytics in their organizations, done recently by IBM, SAS, MIT, and Gartner. Also, we will briefly address the organizational, cultural, and technological challenges faced by organizations embracing business analytics. Finally, we will discuss the unique obstacles and challenges encountered by firms in developing countries with the goal of raising awareness of organizations in the MENA region not only about these impediments but also about the benefits of these technologies and the crucial role they play in the survival and competitiveness of the firm in the complex and turbulent global market.