Business analytics and data visualization: can video help?

Summary 

The most valuable asset for any company today is Big Data. And within this huge body of information is a particularly significant subset: business analytics, which offer a detailed snapshot of everything about the company’s internal processes. But it is not enough to have this information – it is more about getting systems on track that can map and visualize it in a simple, deep and effective way.

That is why there is a strong and decisive link between business analytics and data visualization. What can be the role of the video tool in this regard? A central role: because it is the medium that guarantees the best performance in terms of attention, understanding of the message and engagement…even among its own employees, at any level. 

Introduction to business analytics and data visualization

We started with the basics: in fact, in What are the benefits of Data Visualization?, we provided you with definitions and explained why effective graphical data visualization systems are indispensable for any business. So, in How to create effective data visualization with videos!, we focused on the boost in effectiveness that comes from coupling Data Visualization with the video tool, providing you with 4 practical tips about it. 

Now we are ready to tighten the circle around a more specific topic: that of business analytics and data visualization. To ask ourselves, in a very concrete way: can video help in this field? Why? And how? 

But let’s start right away by precisely delineating our scope of inquiry, asking: what are the differences between Big Data analytics and business analytics. 

Big Data and business analytics – what are the differences? 

On our blog, we often emphasize a basic fact: Big Data is the main driver of Digital Transformation.  

“Big data is high-volume, high-velocity and/or high-variety information assets that demand cost-effective, innovative forms of information processing that enable enhanced insight, decision making, and process automation” (source: gartner.com). 

Leaving this purely technical definition, we can translate it as follows: Big Data is the enormous and unprecedented availability of data that every company, today, can collect to analyze its internal processes and to read the “world” that it operates in, from general sentiment, to the characteristics of potential customers, to the behavior and desires of actual customers. All with an increasingly accurate degree of precision. An invaluable asset. 

In the large set of Big Data, therefore, there is the subset of business data and “business analytics”. 

This label encompasses all the processes aimed at: 

• Efficiently collecting historical business data. 
• Analyzing and interpreting this data to identify recurring patterns and key points and trends, all with the goal of building predictive models. 
• Based on this information and these models, making strategic, data-driven decisions.
  

All of this is vital for any business today, but it’s still not enough. In fact, the next step is to visualize this data. And from visualization you must then move on to sharing. And this is where we get to the heart of the topic of the visualization of business analytics. 

The importance of data visualization and sharing within a company  

We have emphasized that today, data is a real company asset. But, beware: it’s not just a matter of knowing how to collect it with the greatest breadth and depth possible. 

In order to be useful and transform it into operational choices, all of this information must be readable in a way that is functional to the company’s objectives. This is where data visualization systems come into play. 

What benefits derive from the use of this type of system?  

1) Ease of reading: a graphical display is always more understandable than a text report or an oral narrative. 
2) Depth of analysis: because of the ability to manage several “layers” which, in a purely textual format, would require many pages.
3) Speed of comprehension: incomparable to the tiring slowness of purely textual analysis. A fundamental element in the increasingly accelerated world in which we are immersed.
4) Possibility of identifying recurring patterns and trends at a glance.
5) Improvement of decision making processes: which is the final result of all the benefits we have just outlined. 

But we need to take a further step forward: from visualization to sharing. This is a fundamental step within any contemporary organization, both in terms of increasing the efficiency of processes, and in terms of the – perhaps more intangible, but no less important – engagement and advocacy of employees at all levels (we will return to this point, which involves B2E, later in this post). 

Now: where does sharing start? From effective, tailored, and close communication. And no digital medium can guarantee effectiveness, personalization, and closeness like video. 

This is proven by the data itself. We’ll see it below as we answer the question posed in the title of this post: Can video help? 

Business analytics and data visualization – the role of video  

As promised, let’s start with some data on the communicative effectiveness of videos, in terms of attention, engagement, and message comprehension: 

• 55% of people pay more attention when approaching videos than any other type of content (source: omnikick.com).  
• When viewing a video, the average user retains 95% of the message it contains; when it comes to text, this dips to 10% (source: covideo.com). 
• 85% of marketers say video is the best way to get attention online (source: animoto.com). 
• 94% of marketers say that video has consistently helped with what they understand about their products or services (source: hubspot.com). 

There is no need for further comment: these numbers speak very clearly. But here is a very interesting view into what communication and sharing within a company is all about: 

• According to a recent survey, 88% of people say video helps facilitate collaboration and improve efficiency in the workplace (source: limelight.com).

Is that all? No. Even more can be done. And in what way? By turning attention to one of the oldest and most timeless strategies in communication. Effectiveness is not just a matter of the chosen media (in this case, we have seen, video is unrivaled). In fact, the target audience plays a central role. 

Knowing the people you are targeting and tailoring your communications to their characteristics and needs: this is the real boost to capture attention and stimulate engagement, even within a company. 

And the good news is that today all this can be done with personalized videos, the perfect tool for data visualization, and made available by specialized platforms such as the one offered by Babelee. 

It is also a matter of Employee Engagement and B2E 

“…if the person who works at your company is 100% proud of the job they’re doing, if you give them the tools to do a good job, they’re proud of the brand, if they were looked after, if they’re treated well, then they’re gonna be smiling, they’re gonna be happy and therefore the customer will have a nice experience. If the person who’s working for your company is not given the right tools, is not looked after, is not appreciated, they’re not gonna do things with a smile and therefore the customer will be treated in a way where often they won’t want to come back for more” (source: inc.com). 

The statement above is by Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Group. They are words capable of synthesizing, once again, a very old strategy, but which is today – in our accelerated and digital world – more avant-garde than ever. 

The most innovative companies in the global manufacturing ecosystem are almost always those that pay the most attention to employee satisfaction at all levels. And there is an acronym that sums up all such operations: B2E, or Business to Employee. 

All processes that aim to achieve the greatest possible corporate retention are part of this scope. But not only that. The primary objective is Employee Advocacy (the promotion of a company by its employees), which in turn always involves improving Employee Engagement (the degree to which an employee is involved in his or her workplace). 

It is therefore a question of paying the utmost attention to the recruiting and on-boarding phases. Then there are team building strategies, training courses and workshops, the possibility of bonuses and special offers for employees, attention to work-life balance, the possibility of flexible working hours, and much more.

But engagement and satisfaction in the workplace also – and above all – comes from communication: from the ability not to make employees feel like one among many, to involve them as active agents who are capable of influencing the destiny of the organization, to establish a continuous, simple, and profitable dialog with them, characterized by maximum transparency, the sharing of objectives, goals achieved, and gaps to be filled. Of what happens inside the company and of what happens in the world outside. 

And so, once again, everything related to business analytics and data visualization systems comes to the forefront, preferably via video. 

In conclusion, according to a study by Korn Ferry, companies with a high rate of employee engagement produce revenue that is an average of 4.5 times greater than their competitors (source: kornferry.com).