Ad Hoc Analysis: The business intelligence landscape is constantly changing. What’s available to enterprises today is totally different than what was on the market just a few years ago. Ad hoc analysis is one of the developments pushing BI into whole new realms. Here are some of the benefits of ad hoc analysis.
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Get Results Far Faster
One of the most obvious benefits of ad hoc analysis is the fact you can get results much faster than with traditional forms of BI. This is due to the fact users can run their own queries and receive instant results, as opposed to having to send off requests to an analyst. A process that used to often take days, if not weeks, can now be done in a few seconds. Think of how all that saved time can compound over the long term.
The ability to have answers in your hands in seconds means many things. Of course, decisions can be made in less time. But it also means you can use data to analyze decisions that previously would have been impossible due to real-time need. This opens up entirely new opportunities for growth and operational improvement.
Bring More People On Board with Data
While the ability to cut down the time between question and answer has clear benefits, it might not be so obvious as to why you would want to have more people within an organization working with data analytics. After all, there can be serious consequences when sensitive or proprietary data gets out. Some business leaders might be wary of this, understandably, as they don’t want to increase the risk of something going wrong.
But generally speaking, data democratization through self-service analytics can provide vast benefits to organizations. This can be facilitated by platforms and tools that offer powerful ad hoc analysis capabilities. ThoughtSpot is a great example of ad hoc analysis done well. Their search-driven analytics tools empowers just about everyone to make discoveries with data. It works much like a search engine, and can produce visualizations on the fly. Stakeholders don’t have to worry, either, as it’s easy to set up governance to limit permission to certain data when necessary.
Save Your Data Experts’ Time
You already know that it’s great to get actionable insights in less time than ever. But there’s another important benefit to this equation. When more employees are using ad hoc analysis on their own, it frees up more time for data experts to do deeper work.
While it’s great to have more employees using data on their own, that can’t be the only source of analysis within an enterprise. There still needs to be dedicated data scientists and analysts to really dive into separating signal from noise. Affording analysts more time to work on higher-level problems can pay off for your organization.
Ability to Run Real-Time Analytics
There are many use cases for real-time analytics. Think about it: The ability to analyze data as it’s created opens up whole new opportunities for analysis, especially when BI tools are in the hands of more people. This capability, however, can only be facilitated through tools and platforms that enable ad hoc analysis. Without ad hoc analytics, there is no way for regular users to utilize real-time data. Whether you’re a marketer or manufacturer, the ability to make real-time decisions with data is powerful.
Discover Unexpected Insights
When running ad hoc analysis, there’s always a chance you’ll end up making unexpected discoveries. Thanks to limitless drill path capabilities, ad hoc analytics gives users the ability to pursue their questions deeper than they normally would, even if they were just sending requests off to an analyst.
Furthermore, many ad hoc tools actually have built-in functionality that enhances this process. BI tools driven by AI can often guide analysis by providing intuitive follow-ups to user queries. This can lead to insights that otherwise would have never seen the light of day.
Ad hoc analytics clearly has some beneficial properties. Enterprises that can harness ad hoc analytics tools to their advantage are going to lay the foundation for better long-term results.