Taking an advanced approach to business analytics can help a business to discover trends and automate processes that contributes day-to-day to the companys bottom line. As noted in this report on Information Management, an advanced analytics strategy that relies on accurate data flowing quickly to business users can dramatically affect many areas.
"There is, of course, a catch. None of this is possible if data cant be acquired and analyzed in near real time by business users. As we discussed in the first part of this series, data locked in silos or analyzed in isolation from other critical data is of minimal value. Effective analytics cant be dependent on submitting custom data pull requests to IT or shipping data out to third-party vendors to analyze. The analysts need access to the most recent data available, and they need access to it where it sits (typically in a data warehouse). In addition, the analysts need to be able to store the results of their work back in the database so that they are available for immediate use by other analytic processes or reports. The role of an analytical sandbox is to facilitate these efforts."