Does your company feel the need to collect, process, and analyze a lot of information? Undoubtedly, it can help you learn more about your target audience, and market trends and even make important decisions. Regardless of your niche and company size, you should work with data to improve the efficiency of your work processes.
Obviously, the best solution is to seek big data development services from experienced professionals. However, many entrepreneurs limit themselves to using ready-made tools and programs for working with information.
The modern market offers a huge assortment of such products, which makes it difficult for beginners to choose. In this article, we would like to share with you five tips that will help you find the best option for data analytics.
Determine your Main Usage Goals
There is a need to define the primary goals to be served by the tool before buying data analytics software. This will further let you filter down your options and have the assurance that the software you are picking is, in fact, the one you need for your business. Consider the following key questions:
- Data analysis and insights. Are you likely to be faced with processing and analyzing large datasets and extracting useful insights from them?
- Reporting and visualization. Do you need to convert your reporting into an easy-to-understand visualization?
- Predictive analytics. Would you like built-in assistance with information-based forecasting?
What else should be considered when researching goals? Some tools provide a wide range of functionality, including storing vast amounts of data. Also consider additional real-time capabilities, such as collecting and processing information. Think about these questions and give yourself the answers that you really need.
Consider Necessary Technical Expertise
Why does data analytics require the involvement of experienced specialists in your team? It’s quite simple – often this task requires certain technical knowledge from the performers. Knowing the peculiarities of working with Microsoft Excel will not be enough to collect and process a huge amount of important information. In general, there is a list of must-have skills for data analytics.
Different data analytics software can be available or not available to all. In some cases for non-technical users and in some cases for people with extreme technical skills. For starters, evaluate the technical strength of your team before going ahead with a platform. Tools in such cases that offer custom scripting, machine learning capabilities or API integrations can be considered.
Such a case is suitable if your analysts are comfortable working with programming languages like Python or R. Our advice is to choose big data solutions that don’t require advanced knowledge of programming languages and other complex skills. The most important thing for you is that the chosen tool can be easily used by your internal team members. This will allow you to avoid costs and time wasted on training.
Compare Existing Opportunities for Integration
When selecting a data analytics software, you must evaluate whether it fits into the existing software. If your analytics platform has to memorize every one of the databases that you and your company are already using, that’s not a good analytics platform.
By integrating these platforms, any data can flow through seamlessly with minimal export and import and without arguments about manually entering data from one to another. Make sure that it’s compatible with common data formats and systems, including SQL databases, Google Analytics, or other tools.
Another point to consider is API integrations. If you know what an API is and how useful it is, you should definitely check out this aspect. If you want to get all the integrations you want, it is better to go for custom development services. Companies like Digiteum can help you create the perfect data solution.
Think About the Scalability of Your Needs
Your data needs will increase as your business grows. No matter whether your analytics software needs to handle more users or grow into new geographic areas, your software must scale with your operations. Scalability is one that will ensure that that your tool will continue to meet your needs.
Your goal is to determine if the software lends itself to vertical and horizontal scaling. Vertical scaling increases a tool’s capacity on a single server, while horizontal uses more servers to manage more data. Furthermore, it is worth future-proofing your choice. We mean choosing a platform that purposefully supports cloud computing or hybrid infrastructures that can easily scale up or down to accommodate upcoming demands.
Explore Additional Features
When choosing the data analytics software, the collaborative features should be considered. There are a number of platforms that have tools built in so that many team members can work on reports with one another and share insights in real-time. Why is it important? These collaborative features can help the productivity of the project by trimming communication within the group.
Another important feature you will need is customer support. A strong support system can make a huge difference when you already have some problems or when your team needs help with a problematic query. Check whether the platforms offer various options for support, such as through chat, email, and phone. Lastly, make sure that the software accepts multiple languages. This is important especially when going is a global business or a team based in different regions.
Final Thoughts
Do you want a winning solution for collecting, processing, and analyzing essential information? In that case, you need to spend your free time and be careful to choose the best tool. First of all, you should clearly define your goals and scaling requirements. Also, pay attention to the integration capabilities and ease of use of the software.
Of course, you can order development services for big data instead of selecting ready-made solutions. This approach will help you get the perfect tool that is designed exclusively for your purposes. We advise you to contact only trusted companies like Digiteum to get the best results. We hope that the tips from our article will be useful for you in choosing data analytics software!
