Question

Investigate and discuss three major challenges hampering effective and efficient utilization of business analytics for organizations today. Provide at least three arguments to support your position.

Provide a minimum of six references.

Answer 1

Business Analytics is a trend on uprising. It is gradually gaining popularity among the business houses to implement and among students to explore. It simply refers to the process of collection and organization of a large amount of relevant business data, both in-house and out-house, both social and economic, and then application of numerical sciences to draw constructive solutions to various types of managerial and operational challenges.

The data can be utilized to analyze the history of an organization, draw patterns in the problems faced and respective responses pertaining to them. Data science can help the management in comparing the performance of the organization with that of the other players in the market. Such an exercise can make the organizations future ready for any type of challenges that the dynamic business environment has to throw in the way of its growth and gain that much needed competitive edge.

Despite of its many advantages, the implementation of the same is facing challenges. Some of the main reasons are as follows :

1. Lack of specialized skills and training : The human resource in the organizations today is not technically and academically ready to make proper utilization of this highly useful but complex science. The level of skills and expertise needed poses a big challenge for the management to hire the rightly qualified person for this job.

2. High Costs : The expenditure required to be met to collect and store such a wide range of data and hire the Business Analytics Experts is quite huge. The time-frame within which such a huge investment starts to bear fruit may not fall in line with the required rate of output, leading to unfavorable Net Present Value.

3. Resistance : The existing employees may not show the desired level of enthusiasm in upgrading their skills, learning data analytics or making adjustments in their working style to accommodate the innovations the business analytics has to suggest.

4. Data Security : The data that is collected for business analytics may range from highly sensitive financial information of the company, like Profits/losses, Taxes, Shareholders’ wealth, upcoming Investment and expansion plans to legal information like pending law suits. The data may also relate to biometric information of present and past employees. Hence, to ensure protection of data against unauthorized hacking becomes an extremely cumborsome exercise. A good amount of fortune has to be spent on reliable software and hardware devices to hold all this data.

5. Inability to provide real-time solutions : In some complex corporate situations that businesses are posed with suddenly, the business analytics may not be able to provide real-time solutions. This may make the whole idea of spending big on the development and implementation of Business Analytics seem futile.

6. Prone to technological obsolescence : The Analytical Sciences which sees to be a necessity to outperform the competitors today, may become a thing of past soon tomorrow as there is a very rapid advancement in concepts and technology. Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality and the likes are quickly changing the pace of the world.