Software development process is key to obtaining a competitive advantage over competitors. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is working on ways to leverage data analytics technology with its audit practice. Business analytics is a new way for companies to separate themselves from their competitors. I recently completed an internship at PwC and will work there full-time upon completion of this program. PwC uses analytics to help solve complex business issues and to identify opportunities across different industries. PwC is the largest professional service company in the world and is part of the Big Four accounting firms. PwC operates in over 157 countries with more than 750 offices throughout the world. (2) PwC is structured into three service lines, which are Assurance, Advisory and Tax. The assurance practice audits almost 30% of the global fortune 500 companies. (2) The advisory practice consists mainly of consulting activities that cover strategy, cyber security and privacy, human resources, deals and forensics. (2) These three practices generated $35.4 billion in revenue in 2015. (2) PwC’s Software Development Efforts PwC is constantly searching for ways to develop software since data is a growing asset that various businesses are having difficulty converting into a powerful strategic tool. PwC can “apply data driven insights across the enterprise, including financial assurance, tax, technology, operations, customers, human capital, risk, regulatory and deals.”
The data analytic process is one in which a large amount of information is collected using software specifically geared towards collecting, identifying and storing information for use by the company. The information is gleaned from different forums, with social media being the most rich and useful. The information is then quickly sorted and organized for use by the collecting agency (Turban, Volonino, Wood, & Sipior, 2002, p. 6). The use of data analytics really took flight in 2010 when different companies offered software that enabled a company to implement their own data analytics. This led to better marketing campaigns, improved customer relations and it gave companies using the software a bigger advantage over their competitors (Savitz, 2012).
In today’s companies, the analytics software plays the important role and guides the future activities to a great extent.
Each type of analytics as seen on the diagram above, could share a common sub group which could in turn have additional classifications. understanding and reviewing the different types of analytics systems and choosing those that best suite an organization is very helpful in determining the analytic plan for the future of the business. Succeeding in this, will definitely give a boost to the overall value of a business platform.
Many studies show that while many of the Fortune 500 web-based companies had invested heavily, they had a hard time making reasonable business decisions. Many people argue or rather complain that these businesses had gigabytes as well as terabytes of data of Powerpoint and Excel files. Nevertheless, no meaningful implementable actions were taken. A 10/90 Rule is a rule that is applied to fix this kind of problem. The goal of this rule at this time is to achieve the highest value in executing web analytics in this situation. In this case, the cost of professional vendor services, as well as analytics tool, would account for $10. On the other hand, the need investment in the area of analysts and intellectual resources would account to $90. The main aim here is to achieve grand success for their people.
Data analytics is the science of examining raw data with the purpose of drawing conclusions about certain information that is drawn from the data. By gathering data, it must be captured and reviewed then it can be turned into information. There are different types of analytics such as descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive. Descriptive analytics will describe, what happened during the process. Diagnostic analytics describes, why did it happen. Predictive analytics describes, what will happen. Prescriptive analytics describes, how can the process happen with a different approach. By applying these different types of analytics, it will answer several questions during the auditing process. Involving analytics to a process it requires
Business Analytics and Reporting is one of the key focuses of the Business Advisory department, which I am currently apart of. You could say that from an external perspective with our clients, the Business Advisory department of AC Lordi Consulting has fully embraced the needs for analytics to guide and strengthen the decision making of our clients. When clients are facing challenging financial decisions, the Business Advisory department is able to provide the knowledge and expertise beyond the capabilities of their own organization. AC Lordi Consulting has the ability to provide highly skilled professionals in analytics that will develop the proper framework and methodology to have our clients embrace analytics and reporting. AC Lordi Consulting provide a structured framework to answer all the relevant questions, suggest KPI’s that can be measured in the industry and implement target ranges where KPI’s should fall within.
As a large, multi-national financial institution, BAC / ML is at the forefront of the analytical revolution. In an interview with PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) , Brian Moynihan discusses how technology can improve operational efficiency. This is a point that Davenport & Harris make in “Competing on Analytics” - that in today’s market, efficient and effective execution are one of the strategies that can pay off in separating a company from its competition. Mr. Moynihan further speaks to how big data analysis is one of the tools that can provide the intelligence needed to achieve some of their strategic goals. As one of the world’s largest banks, BAC/ML certainly has the funds and resources to bring this intelligence to bear - provided that
In the past weeks, it felt like riding an emotional roller coaster when thinking about being an analytic professional. Professionally, knowing that the personal strengths are in research, planning, organizing and understanding concepts are great, however, the inability to connect what is learned into applicable actions is concerning. On a brighter note, it was surprising to have learned that being an analytics profession isn’t just about numbers and graphics and understanding statistical models, one has to also know (a) data protection, (b) data integrity and (c) data transformation. Next, the connection to project management where responsibilities of a project manager are actually applicable to a professional analytic is a personal bonus. Having an extensive background in project management and business analyst, being able to still practice the learned skills and techniques and apply it in the new found of analytics is a pleasant finding.
Competitive advantage(CA) is an advantage competitors gain by providing or offering customers or consumers greater value for their money through product and service differentiation or through lower prices. Maintaining competitive advantage is crucial to many businesses or organizations' success in order to survive in the market. Competitive advantage is characterized by superior performance which could be an attribute to outperform the competitors whether current or potential; or gaining a higher market share in a particular industry thereby ensuring market leadership; or ultimately, maximization of profit.(JOBBER 2010)
Business thrive when they have the most accurate, up-to-date, and relevant information at their disposal. This information can be used for a plethora of pertinent markers in small and large businesses, relating to accounting, investments, consumer activity, and much more. Big data is a term used to describe the extremely large amounts of data that floods a business every day. For decades, big data has been a growing field, facing controversy on many levels, but as of late, it has been a major innovator in the challenge of making businesses more sustainable. Big data is often scrutinized for its over-generalization and inability to display meaningful results at times. When applied correctly, data analysis can bring earth-altering information to the table.
Today, data is a growing asset that various businesses are having difficulty converting into a powerful strategic tool. Companies need help turning this data into valuable insight, which can diminish risk and enhance returns on investments. Companies are struggling to make sense and obtain value from their big data. Superior and reliable
Software development is one of the highest demands in all over the world. We use software development techniques to solve the problems and to satisfy customers. Agile software development is a conceptual framework for software; it is also a group of software development methods based on iterative development. In 2001, agile software development was created by seventeen people with a desire to find alternative approaches to software development. The most important thing about agile methods are team work, conveying information to the team, face to face conversation, and satisfy the customer. There are various methodologies but I am going to describe the most popular ones.
“Competitive strategy involves positioning a business to maximize the value of the capabilities that distinguish it from its competitor’s” (Porter 1980:47). A successful business plan requires first and foremost the formation of an appropriate strategy. Through the implementation of a suitable strategy, the company is able to obtain its own industry niche and gain an understanding of its customers (Porter 1985). Whichever strategy is adopted it must be adequately integrated within the firms goals and missions to achieve a competitive advantage (Parker and Helms 1992).
Competitive advantages are conditions that permit an organization or nation to deliver a decent or administration at a lower cost or in a more alluring manner for clients. These conditions permit the gainful element to produce a bigger number of offers or unrivaled edges than its opposition. Competitive advantages are ascribed to an assortment of components, including cost structure, mark, nature of item offerings, dispersion and system, licensed innovation and customer support. Samsung had settled on the choice to receive design as a wellspring of competitive advantage in the 1990s. Prior, the company 's items had been unsatisfying and undifferentiated. In the mid1990s, the Group administrator, Kun-Hee Lee, started Samsung 's change from a low-end OEM into a world-class gadgets organization. Honing the company 's design aptitudes was a critical part of the activity. Be that as it may, this required significant changes in culture, procedures, and frameworks inside the organization. Samsung understood that competitive advantage can be accomplished through the design innovation. Samsung 's voyage toward design greatness began in 1993. That year, Lee supposedly went by a gadgets store in Los Angeles, USA. He saw, sadly, that the Samsung items in plain view looked ugly, while the results of Sony and some different organizations looked a great deal all the more engaging. He discovered too that the business staff at the store were themselves overlooking the Samsung
In software development, there are various types of methods that developers follow in order to produce valuable software. From the many types of methods that exist today, the industry standard that is mostly followed today is the software development lifecycle (SDLC). The SDLC is a process that software development companies utilize in order to design, develop and test software during production. Within the SDLC, there are different test models that developers can utilize based on their business and development requirements. Currently today, the most common models include the waterfall, iterative, spiral and V-model. Regardless of the model that a developer decides to utilize, all the phases will be the same, which would begin with the first step and that is the requirement gathering and analysis phase.