If your business produces any kind of data, you should learn about the advantages of cloud analytics. Cloud analytics is data collection, tracking and analysis that is processed on systems hosted in the cloud, rather than in on-premises systems. The major benefit of these cloud-based analytics tools is that they allow companies to manipulate and analyse very large amounts of data as the cloud is not restricted by memory or processor limitations.
Cloud analytics has many uses from analysing website traffic, examining production efficiency, processing financial market data, or analysing climate trends based on satellite data. In fact, anywhere there is large amounts of data to be processed, cloud analytics are an ideal solution.
What is Cloud Analytics?
Cloud analytics refers to the manipulation and analysis of data that happens in the cloud instead of locally, in an on-premises business system. While a spreadsheet program or on-premises analytics system may be sufficient for smaller sets of data containing a few thousand entries, if you need to work with larger, more complex data that could contain tens of thousands or even millions of entries, these options will begin to struggle.
Cloud analytics allows companies to process large data sets in a scalable, more affordable way than expanding in-house infrastructure to handle the process. This is because cloud analytics allows you to access much greater processing power that’s needed for manipulating large amounts of data. The cloud is not restricted like on-site servers and can expand as your needs do. Cloud analytics are also accessible to anyone in your business with the right credentials and kept safe with strong security protocols.
Why use Cloud Analytics?
Cloud analytics has major benefits when compared with traditional data processing tools like spreadsheets and other desktop- or on-premises solutions that all business owners and managers should consider when choosing an analytics solution.
Growth and scalability
Cloud platforms offer powerful capabilities on-demand with near-limitless flexibility. These resources are available as needed for scaling up or scaling down, without any need to purchase, set up or maintain any of your own servers or other resources as your needs shift with growth.
Access from anywhere
Cloud analytics pulled from your company’s ERP system gives your entire workforce a single source of information and analytics, no matter where they’re working from. An added bonus is that your staff don’t need to know how to use different analytics systems as the same one works for all departments: you all sing from the same hymn sheet!
Reduced cost
The costs of housing and maintaining any on-premises systems include IT headcount, hardware and development efforts — cloud analytics means just one bill and, in many cases, lower total costs.
Greater efficiency
The more powerful servers available through cloud computing, as opposed to on-premises systems or employee laptops, allows for faster data processing without the need to upgrade your server, the processor or memory.
Sharing and collaboration
The cloud is inherently better for sharing. Instead of relying on email attachments, network drives to share files and the resulting confusion about multiple versions of files, your staff can work from the same data sets and share reports in a few clicks.
Improved security
With most cloud analytics, data is regularly backed up to servers in multiple locations so it’s protected in the event of a disaster. And because no information is stored locally, there are no local hard drives to steal, and sensitive data is not shared through insecure methods like email. All data is password-protected, users only have access to what they need, and audit logs provide visibility into who accessed what and when and what they did with it.
Choosing a cloud analytics platform
Cloud analytics is a relatively mature field that offers businesses great value with several great options to choose from, but not all cloud analytics platforms offer as many benefits as NetSuite.
NetSuite offers a unified business platform that comes with deep reporting capabilities and offers integrated analytics through the SuiteAnalytics module.
It can harness all the information already stored in this platform — like financials, inventory and orders, human resources and sales and marketing — to drive insights. SuiteAnalytics includes saved searches and filters, standard and customised reporting, and a workbook tool to generate charts and reports based on user-defined parameters. Since SuiteAnalytics is built for NetSuite, there’s no need to integrate a separate analytics platform with your ERP.
Cloud analytics is a tool that’s quickly gaining popularity amongst all types of industries for its accessibility, reliability and the valuable insights that can be gleaned from the information it provides. For any company dealing with large amounts of data and with limited resources to process, manage and analyse it, cloud analytics might be the perfect solution.