Difference Between Big Data and Business Analytics

Per a recent study, about 2MB data is generated every second. You can well imagine how large that is. The various organizations need to deal with this huge amount of data properly to modify their business strategies and remain alive in the market. As the terms suggest, both business analytics and big data are related to handling a large volume of data. But they are slightly different and often misused in place of each other. In this article, we attempt to give you a clearer picture of what big data and business analytics is.

 

What is Business Analytics?

Business analytics is the process of studying the statistical data of an organization with the goal of improving the organization’s financial performance. Business analytics can be divided into 3 types–descriptive, predictive and prescriptive.

Descriptive analytics deals with the various incidents that happened in the past.

Predictive analytics uses machine learning and other techniques to study the data from descriptive analytics and predicts the probability of occurrence of various events in the near future. Prescriptive analytics, as the name suggests, prescribes a list of actions on the basis of descriptive and predictive analytics.

 

The greater the amount of data, the more accurate the generated analytics will be. Any company may use all or any of the above-mentioned techniques, not necessarily in the above-mentioned order. The main goal of business analytics is to modify business strategies with the aim of improving business goals.

 

What is Big Data?

Big data refers to working with an immense volume of both types of data, i.e. structured as well as unstructured. It is the analysis of data coming from various sources to an organization in order to help the organization make better business strategies. Big data works by using various automation processes to study a large amount of collected data that may be processed or unprocessed. It is to be noted that the amount of data collected in this case is much larger compared to that in the case of business analytics, so automation is a must in big data.

 

As you can see, big data and business analytics are not the same. Their major differences are summarized here:

1. Business analytics generally deals with structured data coming from a particular source, while big data deals with structured or unstructured data coming from various sources.

2. In the case of business analytics, the company relies on a group or a single person who is supposed to study the data and draw useful conclusions from it. But in big data, we need to work with a larger volume of data. Thus, various automation processes like machine learning, artificial intelligence, etc. are used.

3. Basically, big data is all about managing the data that is gathered from various sources while business analytics deals with using the processed data to draw meaningful conclusions and improve the business strategies of a company.

 

There is no doubt that both big data, as well as business analytics, are highly important in today’s competitive world for big companies and organizations to stay alive.

 

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With more information, you can decide which one you would like to work with in the future. You must decide which one is good for you based on your abilities and preferences. Wondering how to get started? Well, Business Analytics Certification is one of the best courses is available now at Pune by ExcelR. Hurry up and get enrolled!