Data Analysis and Data Analytics

Data analysis is a process of studying, refining, transforming,

and training past data to gain useful information, suggest
conclusions and make decisions. Data analytics is using data,
machine learning tools, statistical analysis, and computer-based
patterns to gain better insight and design better strategies.

Whenever someone wants to find that what will happen next or

what is going to be next then we go with data analytics because
data analytics helps to predict the future value. Whereas In data
analysis, analysis performs on the past dataset to understand
what happened so far from data.

Data analysis, data analytics. Two terms for the same concept? Or
different, but related terms?

It’s a common misconception that data analysis and data analytics are
the same thing. The generally accepted distinction is:

• Data analytics is the broad field of using data and tools to make
business decisions.
• Data analysis, a subset of data analytics, refers to specific actions.

To explain this confusion—and attempt to clear it up—we’ll look at both

terms, examples, and tools.
What is data analytics?
Data analytics is a broad term that defines the concept and practice (or,
perhaps science and art) of all activities related to data. The primary
goal is for data experts, including data scientists, engineers, and
analysts, to make it easy for the rest of the business to access and
understand these findings.
Data that sits raw, as-is, has no value. Instead, it’s what you do with that
data that provides value. Data analytics includes all the steps you take,
both human- and machine-enabled, to discover, interpret, visualize,
and tell the story of patterns in your data in order to drive business
strategy and outcomes.

A successful data analytics practice can—should—provide a better

strategy for where your business can go. When done well, data
analytics can help you:
 • Find trends
• Uncover opportunities
• Predict actions, triggers, or events
• Make decisions

Like any true practice, data analytics is systematic, consisting of many

computational and management steps. Experts stress the word
“systematic”. Being systematic is vital because data analytics uses many
different activities and draws on all types and sizes of data sources.
Many subject areas comprise data analytics, including data science,
machine learning, and applied statistics. One tangible result of a data
analytics practice is likely well-planned reports that use data
visualization to tell the story of the most salient points so that the rest
of the business—who aren’t data experts—can understand, develop,
and adapt their strategies.
Think of the many ways data analytics can highlight areas of
opportunity for your business:

• Using facts, not guesses, to understand how your customers engage

might mean you change your sales or marketing processes. A
bakery might use its data to realize its demand for bread bowls
increases in the winter—which means you don’t need to discount
the prices when demand is high.
• An increase in cyber attacks might mean you need to take proactive
preventative measures.
• Data from a variety of IoT devices in a certain environment, such as
your server room, a power station, or a warehouse, could indicate
whether you’re providing the safety and reliability you need at the
lowest cost possible.

Processes in data analytics:

The data analytics practice encompasses many separate processes,
which can comprise a data pipeline:

• Collecting and ingesting the data: data ingestion collects data from one or
 more sources (including possibly external sources)

• Categorizing the data into structured/unstructured forms, which

might also define next actions
• Managing the data, usually in databases, data lakes, and/or data
warehouses
• Storing the data in hot, warm, or cold storage
• Performing ETL (extract, transform, load)
• Analyzing the data to extract patterns, trends, and insights
• Sharing the data to business users or consumers, often in a
dashboard or via specific storage

What is data analysis?

Consider data analysis one slice of the data analytics pie. Data analysis
consists of cleaning, transforming, modeling, and questioning data to
find useful information. (It’s generally agreed that other slices are other
activities, from collection to storage to visualization.)

The act of data analysis is usually limited to a single, already prepared

dataset. You’ll inspect, arrange, and question the data. Today, in the
2020s, a software or “machine” usually does a first round of analysis,
often directly in one of your databases or tools. But this is augmented
by a human who investigates and interrogates the data with more
context.
When you’re done analyzing a dataset, you’ll turn to other data
analytics activities to:

• Give others access to the data

• Present the data (ideally with data visualization or storytelling)
• Suggest actions to take based on the data

A vital point of data analysis is that the analysis already captures data,
meaning data from the past.

Type of data analysis:

There are many types of data analysis techniques. Here are the most
well-known:

• Text analysis. This is also referred to as Data Mining. This method

discovers a pattern in large form data sets using databases or
other data mining tools.
• Statistical analysis. This analysis answers “What happened?” by
utilizing past data in dashboard form. Statistic analysis involves the
collection, analysis, interpretation, presentation, and modeling of
data.
• Diagnostic analysis. This analysis answers “Why did it happen?” by
seeking the cause from the insights discovered during statistical
analysis. This type of analysis is beneficial for identifying behavior
patterns of data.
• Predictive analysis. This analysis suggests what is likely to happen
by utilizing previous data. The predictive analysis makes predictions
about future outcomes based on the data.
• Prescriptive analysis. This type of analysis combines the insights
from text, statistical, diagnostic, and predictive analysis to
determine the action(s) to take in order to solve a current problem
or influence a decision.

Combine these different methods depending on the business need and

decision-making process. Pieter Van Iperen, Managing Partner of PWV
Consultants, uses the example of web traffic, which your company very
likely tracks. You have tools in place to automatically collect and
measure individual metrics within web traffic, such as:

• Location
• Activity per time of day
• Mobile vs PC
• Browsers in use

Each of those data points is a small part of the overall analysis. Then,
humans perform further analysis to determine things like how to
optimize your website to:

• Improve sales opportunities

• Reduce sales lead time
• Increase revenue

Analysis that is repeatable can often be converted into a new metric

within your analytic platform.

Tools for data analytics:

Analytics software are tools that help humans and machines perform
the analysis that allows us to make mission-critical business decisions.

Common tools for performing data analysis and overall analytics

include:

• IBM Cognos
• Microsoft Power BI
• Tableau
• R analytics
• Python
• Google Analytics looker studio