Cloud-based analytics platforms are great. They’re flexible, they’re accessible and they grant greater capabilities to businesses. Ensuring your analytics adds value to your business means enabling it to benefit decision making throughout the company. From top to bottom. After all, decisions are made everywhere in a business, not just in the board room. Being able to make data-driven decisions from anywhere is, for some, an unrealistic pipe dream. But it doesn’t have to be.

What is End-to-End Decision Making?

Before we go any further it’s worth covering exactly what we mean by end-to-end decision making and why it should be of interest to you. Cloud-based analytics platforms democratise data, that is, they grant anyone in the business the ability to access and benefit from it. Traditionally, Business Intelligence had been limited to the board room and management meetings, with IT keeping a firm grip on any reports. This stifles decision making and makes life harder for those doing the work. Decisions must be made all the time.

End-to-end decision-making means everyone throughout the business, from the very top to the very bottom, has the power to make data-driven decisions.

Anytime, Anywhere, Any Device

Increasingly, businesses are working more flexibly. Some have predicted that half of the UK workforce will work remotely by 2020. Having traditional analytics models, where software is only available to a select few and only then when they are on-premises simply doesn’t work anymore. Users need access everywhere they are, whether that be in the office, at home, or on the go. Cloud-based platforms enable this perfectly.

Analytics can be accessed from any location, any time-zone and importantly, on any device. It also means users don’t have to bother with irritating software updates or accessing the network via a VPN to get to the data they need. Cloud-based analytics is about streamlining the access of decision makers to data, and in turn, streamline decision making across the business as a whole.

Up-to-the-Minute Updates

Business happens in real time, and decisions are made in real time too. So why shouldn’t your analytics? If your analytics platform is designed to empower your users to make better decisions, then having the data at their fingertips in real-time is incredibly powerful. This pairs perfectly with the data being accessible from anywhere and any device. It is about empowering users to make better decisions.

Very simply, this just isn’t possible when using ‘traditional’ analytics methods which rely on on-premises hardware. When reports have to be requested with IT and then shared out from there the data is very often irrelevant by the time it is in the hands of those who need it. Cloud-based analytics means any and all updates can be released instantly to all users. No time wasted, no data lost, and the power put in the hands of those making frontline decisions.

Modern Businesses Need Modern Solutions

The lines of how we work and how modern business is done have been changing since the advent of the digital age and they continue to do so. Traditional, centralised models simply don’t add up in today’s environment. Whether that be models of business or models of data analytics – the principles are the same.

Businesses benefit hugely from having their analytics be flexible, accessible from anywhere, and instantly up-to-date. It enables all users across the business to make better, data-driven decisions. That’s why we love basing analytics in the cloud. It works for everyone.