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How the Cloud can assist businesses with predictions and insights

 | 3 min read
How the Cloud can assist businesses with predictions and insights

Part 2: Benefits of analytics in the Cloud | Read Part 1

For many businesses, data has become the new currency. Organizations have come to rely on data insights to monitor the health of the business, track productivity, and identify key opportunities to optimize outcomes.

However, implementing and maintaining analytics efforts can come with its own set of challenges. In order for organizations to make the most out of data, reliable data management is key. In this regard, many are turning to cloud-based analytics models for scalability. In fact, between February and April this year, there’s been a 68% increase in enterprises who consider cloud computing critical to their operations.

Below are some areas where Cloud Analytics can make an impact.

1. Data consolidation

Cloud analytics is an approach where some, if not all, analytics components are hosted in the cloud. This helps simplify the process of gathering and analyzing data and can speed up decision making. By consolidating data sources and building a data warehouse in the cloud, organizations can easily connect and access live data, build relationships to unify data sets, create prediction models, and visualize data on interactive dashboards or as shareable reports.

2. Team collaboration

By offering a centralized warehouse for data, the cloud also provides an opportunity to enhance collaboration and communication. An increased ease of access can reduce silos within and between departments—team members can easily create and share reports and collaborate on projects. Insights can be gained from all corners of a company.

3. Storage

Within the last few years, the amount of data available has increased, and cloud computing has played a tremendous role in scaling up data processing and storing.

The cloud is designed to store and sync large amounts of data, which helps speed up data collection and data analysis for critical decision making. Scalability is one of the key advantages of cloud computing, especially among organizations with changing requirements and goals.

However, not all cloud vendors are built the same when it comes to data analytics and insights. From one vendor to the next, there are often differences in security walls, centralized systems, and where information is hosted. For instance, Infor CloudSuite uses multiple locations to store data. This means that when employees need to gather data, the process can be much more complex.

4. Security

Data security is vital for any business, especially those that collect sensitive information or need to adhere to strict regulations. While a centralized data warehouse in the cloud eases data access and discovery, organizations still need to ensure security and proper governance. Data breaches of any size can decrease customer trust and lead to lost opportunities.

Most cloud applications offer strict access control, in which a super administrator assigns permissions to certain individuals to control who has access to the data and who has greater control over these access points. For example, Analance grants access to key data scientists who works with data to make sense of it.

Limiting who has access helps prevent unwanted data breaches. Cloud analytics also reduces the need for multiple tools, solving access point problems and ensuring data security.

Final thoughts

When properly used, the cloud can be an invaluable tool for any organization looking to incorporate or strengthen their analytics capabilities. The cloud has the capability to process large amounts of information in real time and feed into cloud applications to produce valuable analytical insights. It also reduces the challenges that often come with on-premise implementation: storage space, the ability to collaborate, and data security.

About the author

Fiona Villamor

Fiona Villamor

Fiona Villamor is the lead writer for Sryas, a global technology company that delivers powerful insights and business transformations at scale. In the past 10 years, she has written about big data, advanced analytics, and other transformative technologies and is constantly on the lookout for great stories to tell about the space.

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