Data Analytics

In the article, the term analytics is used to mean the interpretation of data collected through various forms of technology in order to, according to Davenport in “Competing on Analytics,” “wring every last drop of value from all…business processes.”

Marriott International has used analytics to its advantage over the course of the last two decades. The hospitality company has employed the Analytics 3.0 methodology for an increasing number of its services and business processes through its Total Hotel Optimization program. The company astutely and effectively utilized the data that it collected to improve business operations as well as giving it a competitive advantage over other hotel companies. Not only did it have extensive systems in place for collecting and analysing the data, it also had overrides in place to account for unexpected changes or emergencies. Due to these data analytics practices, the company has been able to increase its revenue opportunity to 91%.

My company had not used analytics in the manner detailed in the articles because it was a smaller company. As an SME, the company could have bought some cheaper preliminary data servers and used open-source software like Hadoo to begin gathering and later analysing data for the company’s programs and potential services or events. Using such data from consumers effectively could have allowed the entrepreneur I worked for optimize business processes through data-collection and analysis of her client base. In doing so, she would have made better data-driven decisions for which projects to move forward with or which business aspects to streamline.