What’s that one trait or characteristic common in successful businesses, entrepreneurs, sportspersons, artists, and even social and political leaders? The answer—Innovation. The world is changing at a breathtaking pace and continuous and qualitative innovation is key to staying relevant.

This has begun to change with innovation now being driven by data analytics. Till recently, organizations struggled to collect, store, analyze, and derive actionable insights from big data. 

Yet, this is now changing with organizations—big and small—becoming more open to using new technologies to reap the benefits of holistic innovation.

Data Analytics and Coronavirus

From a dashboard providing a real-time view of the spread of the n-CoV virus across the world to natural language processing tools to parse social media posts and identify persons with suspicious symptoms, data analytics is helping the world combat the virus in ways that were impossible during the 2003 SARS outbreak. 

Further, businesses across the world are analyzing big data and open data to find solutions to logistics and supply chain bottlenecks resulting from the virus outbreak. This ability to tackle a problem with innovative yet reliable solutions is possible only due to analytics.  

Saving Water through Smarter Analytics

Distribution losses accounted for 45% of the freshwater being supplied to the city of Trivandrum. 

Big data analytics solutions have helped the authorities cut leakages, obtain real-time visibility of water consumption in the city, and track water quality and performance of its treatment plants. Further, better billing processes have led to a 10% boost in revenue collections.

With a better analysis of where, when, how, and why water is being consumed, urban and rural centers in India can make better use of this precious natural resource. 

Smarter and More Efficient Hospitals

A capacity command center set up in Baltimore has helped a big hospital manage the flow of the 130,000 patients it receives every year. Algorithms and analytics have resulted in a 30% cut in admission time, a 70% fall in transfer from operation rooms, and a 30% improvement in the time taken to discharge a healthy patient. 

In the Indian context, the overburdened public health infrastructure can gain a lot if such innovative solutions are deployed here. Analytics can make it possible for hospitals to save more lives with improved cost efficiency. 

Making Entertainment Fun and Interesting

80% of all content streamed on Netflix is influenced by its recommendation system. The ‘Recommended for you’ section on Netflix is clear proof of how analytics can help businesses deliver better quality to their customers. 

Predicting what movie people would like to see is probably the toughest challenge in the world. Yet, Netflix certainly seems to have cracked this and this innovation clearly sets it apart from all its competitors. 

Faster and More Reliable Financial Risk Management

A Singapore-based bank cut down the time taken for its risk management system to calculate the value of risk from 18 hours to just a few minutes. In today’s hyper-connected world of finances, the innovation of this scale has the potential of transforming the prospects of financial institutions. 

In the hands of agencies like the RBI, these tools can lead to risk-free innovation in public policy and fiscal management of the country’s economy.  

Making Innovation a Scientific Exercise

Innovation is all about seeing what everybody sees and thinking what nobody has thought before. With analytics by your side, there will be a greater understanding of the potential implications of various ideas and options. 

The best part is that data analytics is structured to learn from every mistake or misjudgment, which means innovation can only become safer going ahead. 

Sources

https://www.wired.com/story/how-ai-tracking-coronavirus-outbreak/

https://www.dqindia.com/8-innovative-examples-of-big-data-usage-in-india/5/

https://blog.walkme.com/analytic-rock-stars-big-data-customer-experience/

https://www.mentionlytics.com/blog/5-real-world-examples-of-how-brands-are-using-big-data-analytics/