Data Analytics: Interview with Professor Wayne Winston

Data—whether it is sales, stock prices, or test scores—helps organizations measure their performance, but it is analytics that helps them identify patterns and make better, more comprehensive decisions. In this interview, awarding-winning mathematics professor Wayne Winston sits down with us to explain why analytics are important, and offer guidance for those trying to break into the field as an analytics professional. He also explains how analytics can provide insights into supply chains, marketing, and financial data, and help cities, school systems, and hospitals better meet the needs of the public.

Topics include:
• What are analytics?
• Predictive vs. prescriptive analytics
• What do you need to know to become an analytic professional?
• Looking at examples of good and bad metrics
• How mobile devices will shape analytics

There was a time when crucial business decisions were taken solely based on experience and intuition. However, in the technological era, the focus shifted to data, analytics and logistics. Today, while designing marketing strategies that engage customers and increase conversion, decision makers observe, analyze and conduct in depth research on customer behavior to get to the roots instead of following conventional methods wherein they highly depend on customer response.

There was five Exabyte of information created between the dawn of civilization through 2003 which has tremendously increased to generation of 2.5 quintillion bytes data every day. That is a huge amount of data at disposal for CIOs and CMOs. They can utilize the data to gather, learn, and understand Customer Behavior along with many other factors before taking important decisions. Data analytics surely leads to take the most accurate decisions and highly predictable results. According to Forbes, 53% of companies are using data analytics today, up from 17% in 2015. It ensures prediction of future trends, success of the marketing strategies, positive customer response, and increase in conversion and much more.