High-performance analytics: the route to faster decision-making

In today's competitive business environment, decision-makers need answers faster than ever before. While the volume of data companies are faced with increases rapidly each year, new technology and analytics solutions now mean that processing big data does not have to take very much time at all. High-performance analytics lets organisations access accurate and timely insights in minutes to make better-informed business decisions, says Andoret Venter, Senior Solution Manager: Information Management Practice, SAS South Africa.

But how does it work?

Let's first look at the current scenario. Over the years, the volume of data that can be stored has increased to the point that companies can now create an enterprise data warehouse for a virtually unlimited amount of data. A semantic query layer provides a summarised view of the stored data, which is then pushed into the memory of the data warehouse for querying. This gives the data warehouse an in-memory ability to run big data and allows queries to be processed considerably quickly.

The next step is to apply analytics, which involves solving complex queries through mathematical algorithms. In this traditional method, analytics is performed on the data only after it reaches that data warehouse, and has already been processed from the source or transactional database.

Faster analytics for faster decision-making

But the pace of business today has meant that decisions need to be made much faster in order to remain competitive.

This is where high-performance analytics comes in. By using a more intelligent query method from the start, the entire data management process doesn't need to happen in order for analytics to be performed - the user can apply analytics straight onto the structured and unstructured data from the source. This also means the user is not restricted to the amount of data that can be pushed into the memory component.

High-performance analytics determines the relevance of data prior to doing in-depth data modelling or warehousing.

Ultimately, this means a faster 'time to intelligence' and reduced data storage costs because less time and disk space is required for processing unneeded data.

What can businesses do with faster, better answers?

With the advent of high-performance analytics, South African companies can now make sense of data in ways never before possible:

* Retailers can discover optimal price points in one or two hours instead of 30, by running millions of alternate pricing scenarios quickly so stores can clear inventory, improve profits and leave their competition in the dust.
* Investment banking firms can recalculate entire risk portfolios at high speeds, reducing the time from as much as 18 hours to as little as 12 minutes.
* Network operators can address changes in network demand nearly instantaneously, allowing them to deliver optimal performance all of the time.
* Insurers can provide faster processing on the growing volumes of data at their fingertips.

The list goes on. In almost any industry, faster analytics on big data means better decisions, which ultimately puts your business ahead of the competition.

* Venter will be presenting at SAS Global Forum, from 12 to 14 September, alongside other experts in the field of big data and analytics.