Business analytics use case
With a business analytics solution, you can visualize and analyze enterprise data to identify patterns and trends, explore opportunities, and make informed, insightful business decisions.
You can implement a business analytics use case with tools and services in Cloud Pak for Data to use your data to build dashboards to visualize and discover business insights. You can build reports that help you to predict future outcomes. Your organization can make the most of your existing data to provide a personalized analytics experience that is driven by AI. You can deliver more accurate financial and operational plans and forecasts, streamline and enable self-service analytics across the organization, and empower business users to predict and influence future outcomes.
Challenges
Many enterprises face the following challenges with their business analytics processes:
- Viewing and understanding data
- Your organization needs to view and understand the data from your data fabric solution or from databases such as IBM Db2 to make informed decisions.
- Empowering business users
- You need to provide self-service tools that enable your business users to make the most of your data.
- Predicting and shaping future outcomes
- Your organization needs to be able to use your data to plan and predict outcomes so you can make decisions that impact the future of your business.
Example: Golden Bank's challenges
Follow the story of Golden Bank as the organization's analysts implement a business analytics solution. Golden Bank has a large amount of customer and mortgage data that includes sensitive data. The bank implemented a data fabric solution to govern, integrate, create consolidated views of, and operationalize its customer and mortgage data and models. Now, Golden Bank wants to view and analyze that data and put it to work to help the organization make informed decisions and plan for future business.
Process
The Cognos Analytics, Planning Analytics, and Cognos Dashboards services on Cloud Pak for Data provide the tools and processes that your organization can use to implement a business analytics solution with your data.
1. Visualize the data
When you implement a business analytics solution, the first step is to use dashboards and stories in the Cognos Analytics service and dashboards in the Cognos Dashboards service to create compelling visualizations and dashboards. Your business users can view and work with data that you collect, govern, and integrate through your data fabric solution, or by connecting to data sources, such as IBM Db2, on your Cloud Pak for Data instance.
| What you can use | What you can do | Best to use when |
|---|---|---|
| Cognos Dashboards |
Use the dashboard editor in projects to build visualizations of your data. Communicate the insights that you discover from your data on a dashboard. Visualize CSV files, integrated data from your Cloud Pak for Data data fabric solution, and data from data sources that you connect to on your Cloud Pak for Data instance. View many different types of graphs. Add widgets such as text, media, web pages, images, and shapes. |
You want a simple way to view and explore the data interactively to better understand it and begin investigating data for patterns and insights. |
| Cognos Analytics dashboards |
Use the dashboard editor in projects to build visualizations of your data. Communicate the insights that you discover from your data on a dashboard. Visualize CSV files, integrated data from your Cloud Pak for Data data fabric solution, and data from data sources that you connect to on your Cloud Pak for Data instance. View many different types of graphs. Add widgets such as text, media, web pages, images, and shapes. Perform self-service analytics with automated data preparation and modeling. Create interactive visualizations of your data. |
You want to perform a deeper analysis of your data and view and explore the data interactively to understand it and find patterns and insights. |
| Cognos Analytics stories | Create scenes that visualize your data. Tell a story about your data. |
You want to inform and engage your audience when they visualize your data. |
Example: Golden Bank's data visualization
The bank's business analysts can use curated mortgage data to create simple visualizations with dashboards. They then can create more complex interactions and stories to present the data about the mortgage approval process and the mortgage products.
2. Analyze the data
The next step in the process is to analyze the data that you presented and visualized in the first step. By using explorations in Cognos Analytics, you can provide self-service analytics capabilities, which are infused with AI and machine learning, to enable your business users to explore and analyze data.
| What you can use | What you can do | Best to use when |
|---|---|---|
| Cognos Analytics explorations |
Explore a visualization from a dashboard or story. Discover relationships and identify patterns that turn your data into insights. |
You want to explore in a flexible workspace where you can discover and analyze data. |
Example: Golden Bank’s data analysis
The Golden Bank business analysts explore the dashboards and stories to determine what the data is saying about the bank's mortgages and processes.
3. Report on the data and predict outcomes
The final step in the process is to take action based on your visualizations and analysis. Your business users can identify and understand patterns and relationships in your business data and use the patterns to make predictions about future outcomes.
| What you can use | What you can do | Best to use when |
|---|---|---|
| Planning Analytics Workspace |
Build a model of your business. Import and maintain business data. Monitor and administer data where it resides. Create and share complex reports with visualizations. Build private sandboxes where you can explore scenarios. |
You want to use a web-based interface that provides full modeling, reporting, and administrative capabilities. |
| Planning Analytics for Microsoft Excel |
Build and share various report types, from simple to sophisticated. Enhance reports with standard Excel functions. Build private sandboxes where you can explore scenarios. |
You want to use a familiar spreadsheet environment that is integrated with Planning Analytics to view and interact with your data. |
| Planning Analytics TM1 Web |
View, analyze, edit, and chart your data. Build private sandboxes where you can explore scenarios. |
You want to use a web-based interface that you can use to interact with Planning Analytics data. |
| Cognos Analytics reporting |
Build multiple-page, multiple-query reports with data from multiple databases. Create reports such as invoices, statements, and weekly sales and inventory reports. |
You want to use a web-based report authoring tool to create sophisticated reports of your data. |
Example: Golden Bank’s reporting and prediction
The Golden Bank business analysts prepare web-based reports, supported by spreadsheets and interactive visualizations, to present the data to the bank's mortgage department. Based on these reports, the bank might adjust their mortgage approval process, products, or plans.