DigiTech Magazine - US CIO2020 - Fall 2015 | Page 9

................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ WHY VISUAL ANALYTICS? Grids, gauges, rows, columns, and the need for a magnifying glass in order to analyze an organization’s data is something that too many businesses have been doing for far too long. Seeing organizations invest heavily in data warehouse solutions, ETL packages, and architecture is a step in the right direction. However there has been little or no emphasis on portraying the visual analytics of such valuable data. Big data needs to be presented in a way that the business can quickly understand and act on. This is not a minor consideration. Mining millions of rows of data creates a big headache for analysts tasked with sorting and presenting data. Typically organizations often approach the problem in one of two ways: 1. By building “samples” so that it is easier to both analyze and present the data 2. By creating template charts and graphs that can accept certain types of information. Instead, businesses should consider pairing big data with visual analytics so that all the data is used and automated help enables the selection of best ways to present the data. This frees staff to focus on gaining insights from data THE BENEFITS Visualization can offer a number of benefits over analysis of data using numbers only. These benefits are based on people’s ability to process images efficiently. We can scan, recognise, and recall images rapidly. In addition, the human brain is an amazing pattern- recognition tool, and it can detect changes in size, color, shape, movement, and texture very efficiently. The following highlights some of the main benefits of visualization 1. Answers questions quickly – Visualization can provide a quick, high level summary of the main information contained in the data. 2. Poses new questions – Quite often the initial data investigations can lead to more questions and further exploration. 3. Explores and discovers – Sometimes the data shows some unexpected patterns and outliers – data points which are well outside the normal data range. Exploring these data points can lead to new discoveries. 4. Communicates information – Graphical representations of data are more effective as a means of communication than long textual files. A story can be told more efficiently, and the time to understand a picture is a fraction of the time that it takes to understand the textual data. 5. Supports decisions – Visualization can provide quick answers and can improve situational awareness. This in turn can lead to faster and timely decisions. 6. Increases efficiency – A well designed chart can save a lot of time otherwise needed to read pages of numbers and long textual reports. This time can be better spent on making sound business decisions. 7. Inspires – Visualizations can enhance the way in which data is presented. This can in turn challenge current practice. Using innovative data visualizations can make your audience more enthusiastic about what is being communicated to them, inspiring them to take action. IN PRACTICE Having worked with several organizations, the most common problem that we at North Highland have encountered is data that is coming in from disparate sources such as internal source systems and/or external drivers like Facebook or Twitter, which is treated separately without any meaning or emphasis. Organizations tend to drown in their own data but are starved of reliable, consistent, and actionable information. Working with industry, we have been able to demonstrate the benefit of obtaining data in real or batch time and then portray these results in a way that turns data into a story that the user can ultimately control. We see Visual Analytics being able to sit alongside the large custom reporting solutions in order to bring the deep and broad data sets to life, making it easier and quicker for you to get insight into capital, risk and solvency performance. Providing visual concepts such as storyboards, combined with psychology behind the real estate these visualizations sit on, impacts the reporting consumer far more than going to each row and column, and analysing the data until it becomes insightful. Looking at where you will be visualizing data is extremely important – will it be on a web browser, a PDF, an email, a mobile device and is it to be interactive? At North Highland, we design and implement the tools that enable our clients to: • Self-serve • Create appropriate visualizations • Use granular data to focus on trends, patterns and insights We work closely with the business as well as the technical teams in order to harness value from the infrastructure already in place. Organizations may already have the infrastructure but just not realize it… For more information on how we can help you in the ever-growing area of Visual Analytics, talk to Vivek: [email protected] CIO Magazine Fall 2015 Issue 9