Introduction to Data

Analytics
Terminologies
• Data – values or set of values, raw or unorganized.

• Information – processed or meaningful data.

• Analytics – discovery, interpretation and communication of meaningful patterns.

Analytics is not a tool or technology, rather it is a way of thinking and acting on data.
Data Analytics
• Data Analytics can be defined as the process of analyzing raw data to find trends
and answer questions.
• Data Analytics refers to the techniques used to analyze data to enhance
productivity and business gain.

• Data is extracted from various sources and is cleaned and categorized to analyze
various behavioral patterns.
• The techniques and the tools used vary according to the organization or individual.
Role of Data Analytics
• Gather Hidden Insights – Hidden insights from data are gathered and then
analyzed with respect to business requirements.
• Generate Reports – Reports are generated from the data and are passed on to
the respective teams and individuals to deal with further actions for a high rise in
business.
• Perform Market Analysis – Market Analysis can be performed to understand the
strengths and weaknesses of competitors.
• Improve Business Requirement – Analysis of data enables better understanding
of business requirements and hence the customer experience.
 Data Analytics vs. Data Science
• Data analysts typically work with structured data to solve tangible
business problems using tools like SQL, R or Python programming
languages, data visualization software, and statistical analysis.
• Data scientists often deal with the unknown by using more advanced
data techniques to make predictions about the future. They might
automate their own machine learning algorithms or design predictive
modeling processes that can handle both structured and unstructured
data. This role is generally considered a more advanced version of a
data analyst.

*Source: Coursera
Data Analytics vs. Data Science

• Data analytics answers specific questions or address challenges that have already
been identified and are known to the business.

• Data scientist considers what questions the business should or could be asking.
Involves design of new processes for data modeling - predictive models, custom
analyses.
Data Analytics vs. Data Science
Data Analytics Data Science
Collaborating with organizational leaders to Gathering, cleaning, and processing raw data
identify informational needs
Acquiring data from primary and secondary Designing predictive models and machine
sources learning algorithms to mine big data sets
Cleaning and reorganizing data for analysis Developing tools and processes to monitor and
analyze data accuracy
Analyzing data sets to spot trends and patterns Building data visualization tools, dashboards, and
that can be translated into actionable insights reports
Presenting findings in an easy-to-understand way Writing programs to automate data collection
to inform data-driven decisions and processing
Data Analytics vs. Data Science
Data Analytics Data Science
Mathematics Foundational math, statistics Advanced statistics, predictive
analytics
Programming Basic fluency in R, Python, Advanced object-oriented
SQL programming
Software and SAS, Excel, business Hadoop, MySQL, TensorFlow,
tools intelligence software Spark
Other skills Analytical thinking, data Machine learning, data
visualization modeling
Types of Data Analytics
• Descriptive analytics
• Diagnostic analytics
• Predictive analytics
• Prescriptive analytics
Descriptive analytics
• Descriptive analytics helps answer questions about what happened.

• These techniques summarize large datasets to describe outcomes to stakeholders.

• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs,) are used to keep track of successes or failures.
• E.g. ROI (Return on Investment)

• This process requires the collection of relevant data, processing of the data, data
analysis and data visualization.

• This process provides essential insight into past performance.

Diagnostic analytics
• Diagnostic analytics helps answer questions about why things happened.

• They take the findings from descriptive analytics and dig deeper to find the cause.

• This generally occurs in three steps:

• Identify anomalies in the data. These may be unexpected changes in a metric or a particular
market.
• Data that is related to these anomalies is collected.
• Statistical techniques are used to find relationships and trends that explain these anomalies.
Predictive analytics
• Predictive analytics helps answer questions about what will happen in the future.

• These techniques use historical data to identify trends and determine if they are
likely to recur.

• It includes a variety of statistical and probability techniques.

• E.g. how much the company revenue is likely to increase?

Prescriptive analytics
• Prescriptive analytics helps answer questions about what should be done.

• By using insights from predictive analytics, data-driven decisions can be made.

• Prescriptive analytics techniques rely on machine learning strategies that can find
patterns in large datasets.

• By analyzing past decisions and events, the likelihood of different outcomes can
be estimated.
Steps in Data Analytics
• The primary steps in the data analytics process are:-
• Data extraction
• Data management/warehousing
• Statistical analysis
• Data presentation/visualization

• The importance and balance of these steps depend on the data being
used and the goal of the analysis.
Data Extraction
• It involves extracting data from
unstructured data sources. E.g.
text, large complex databases,
or raw sensor data.

• The key steps in this process

are to extract, transform, and
load data (often called ETL).

• This prepares data for storage

and analysis.

• Data extraction is generally the

most time-intensive step in the
data analysis pipeline.
Data management /Data Warehousing

• Data warehousing involves

designing and implementing
databases that allow easy
access to the results of data
mining.

• This step generally involves

creating and managing SQL
databases.
Statistical analysis

• Statistical analysis allows analysts to

create insights from data.

• Both statistics and machine learning

techniques are used to analyze data.

• Programming languages such as R or

Python are essential to this process.

• In addition, open-source libraries and

packages such as TensorFlow enable
advanced analysis.
Data presentation/visualization

• Visuals are used to describe the

insights gained from the data.

• Visualizations can help tell the

story in the data which are
much easier to understand.
Tools used in Data Analytics
•R
• Python
• Tableau Public
• free software that connects to any data source such as Excel, Data Warehouse, etc, then
creates visualizations, maps, dashboards etc. with real-time updates on the web.
• Microsoft Excel
• RapidMiner
• used for integration with data sources, mostly used for predictive analytics, such as data
mining, text analytics, machine learning.
• Apache Spark
• One of the largest large-scale data processing engines, this tool executes applications in
Hadoop clusters.