TYPES OF DATA ANALYTICS
There are four main type of analytics and they are as follows :
- Descriptive Analysis
Descriptive Analysis usually answers the question “What happened?”. This type of analysis describes or summarizes raw data into something explainable and meaningful. This is mostly used to summarize different aspects of a particular business, describe what’s going on in a particular organization and when it’s required to understand activities at an aggregate level. This relates to describing the past and is useful as it allows us to analyze past behaviors and how they could have an impact in the near future.
- Diagnostic Analysis
Diagnostic Analytics examines data to answer the question “Why did it happen?”. This is characterized by various techniques such as Drill-Down, Data Discovery, Data Mining and Correlations. These techniques allow the users to go towards deeper analysis which will result in justifying why certain activities or situations have occurred in an organization.
- Predictive Analysis
Predictive Analysis answers the question “What is likely to happen?”. This method has the ability to predict what might happen in the future. Therefore, this provides organizations with actionable insights based on the data available. This is used when it’s required to know something about the future or in order to find some missing information which is essential and not available at the moment. A most commonly used technique is Data Mining Algorithms.
- Prescriptive Analysis
Prescriptive Analysis answers the question “What is the best course of action?”. This method allows users to prescribe various possible actions to which as a result guides them towards a solution. This method attempts to quantify the effect of future decisions in order to advise on possible outcomes before the decisions are actually made.
