Data Analytics: The Time Is Now!
By Rajendra Chaudhary
Mumbai, Dec 29, 2005

For organizations all across the globe, effective data management is fast becoming a key functionality. With the stockpile of information growing by the minute, businesses irrespective of their size, scale or nature are increasingly inclined to explore the realm of Data Analytics.

Data analytics can empower an organization with crucial information against upcoming business obstacles by revealing hidden trends and capturing key insights, upon which they can base their strategic plans and operational policies.

It is used in verticals such as BFSI for customer analytics, retail for analyzing behavioral patterns of buyers, manufacturing sector for better supply chain management and also in pharmaceutical industry to deal with the drug discovery process, such as claims analysis or clinical trials.

Estimates suggest that India could account for one third of the total $17 billion global market by 2007.

This estimate is not a figment of some overzealous experts' imagination. Companies such as American Express, Citibank, Prudential Insurance, Accenture are already outsourcing a part of their analytics to their captive centers in India.

According to Steve Simpson, Global Director, ATG Worldwide, "This is the golden age of Data Analytics. There is no lack of data, however there is a serious dearth of intelligent interpretation of data and it is this very reason that analytics services providers can benefit from a great deal."

There are a number of established third party service providers in India such as OfficeTiger, EvalueServe, WNS, and EXL that are offering high-end analytics services. Also global analytic service providers like Fair Isaac and Symphony are outsourcing analytic services to India and have customers in BFSI, retailing, telecommunications and healthcare verticals.

The availability of skilled manpower is a success factor for India to become a significant player. Data analytics offers India a chance to move out of labor arbitrage and migrate to the higher end of the value chain of knowledge activities.

However, the true potential of analytics will take some time to be realized, the reason being that many Indian organizations simply don't believe that analytics works. They consider it to be an unreliable base to build strategies and policies.

Susheela Venkataraman, Partner, business consulting services, IBM Global Services India attributes this to the lack of primary data. She says, "Until you have really good primary data flowing in, effective analytics won't be possible. Many Indian organizations have realized this and so they are in the process of getting good primary data flowing in for analytics."