Advanced analytics

Why something happened in the past?

Diagnostic data analysis helps find out the Why did something happen?. Once we get the report of what happened from descriptive analysis,diagnostic data analysis helps us understand which factors caused something to happen. It has more complexities than descriptive analysis. Example: analyzing the reasons/factors for fewer sales in the previous year.

Descriptive analysis is one of the most common and primary forms of data analysis. Descriptive data analysis is helpful to find the what is/has happening/happened?. in business. Usually, we take the help of descriptive data analysis to track the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), sales profit/loss, and so on. Example: publishing weekly sales report.

What actions should I take?

Predictive analysis is not always sufficient to make improved business decisions; instead, we need corrective actions to improve decisions. For that, prescriptive data analysis comes into the picture. Prescriptive data analysis uses the outcomes of all the data analysis. It will help find the what action should be taken?. to counter a problem or predicted problem. So, it prescribes the action(s) as a solution to counter the specific situation. It needs advanced machine learning and real-time artificial intelligence. Example: Dynamic pricing of taxi fares depends on demand, weather, and social conditions.

What can happen in the future?

Predictive data analysis is used to forecast or predict what can likely happen by analyzing the historical data, which helps us understand what will probably happen in the future? For example, by analyzing the past years of sales reports, it is possible to predict the coming years sales, but this task does not come easily. It is needed in advanced data analysis and Machine Learning (ML). Example: predicting the unemployment ratio for upcoming years.