The Benefits of Real-time Data Reporting

Real-time data analytics can give your business a vital edge in the market. With live updates from big data sources and to-the-second feedback, you can easily see how new strategies affect your business.

It’s no wonder then why, according to McKinsey, there’s a race to become a ‘data-driven enterprise’ by 2025. Leading organizations are adopting digital analytics tools faster than ever to get access to live insights and stay ahead of their competition. However, not all platforms are capable of dealing with the demanding workload of big data processing and analytics tasks, so choosing the right software is vital.

If you’re looking to advance your organization’s use of Business Intelligence (BI), this article is for you. We’ll be looking at why real-time data analytics are so important and how you can take advantage of them using Astrato. Read on to learn more about real-time data processing and find out how to make data-driven decisions easily using cutting-edge cloud-enabled Business Intelligence tools.

Why is data analytics important? 

The jury’s out on whether a recession is already here or yet to come, but businesses are already feeling the effects. Senior leaders increasingly need to find ways to use their resources more efficiently to stabilize their growth and maximize investment budgets – especially as inflation highs eat away at their value. 

Business Intelligence software with real-time data processing capabilities offer a way to measure the ROI of new strategies more effectively, whether it’s a new sales tactic or employee engagement initiative. As a result, firms can test new ideas quickly and gauge whether they’re worth pursuing long-term. In turn, these enhanced insights mean you can navigate the shifting economic landscape with more confidence and use data to support your growth ambitions. 

In any case, it’s important to understand which type of real-time data analytics support your business needs. Gartner identifies two types of analytics solutions:

• On-demand real-time analytics: This is where users or systems must wait for data requests to come through. Once a query is placed, BI software can then deliver the result. 
• Continuous real-time analytics: This type of analytics support is more proactive; data feeds are run constantly, so systems can alert users or trigger responses automatically, giving you time to focus on other business areas. 

Of course, your business probably won’t need continuous data streams for every business area, but establishing these sorts of live feeds where they’re most relevant (like in ongoing business operations) is critical. Then, you can use on-demand data streaming to inform your remaining business strategies where live feedback isn’t needed, and gain complete visibility over your organizational performance.  

What’s missing when your analytics lag 

No data processing task is ever completely instant, so lags in your data streaming are bound to occur. The important thing is to minimize them as much as possible, since large time delays create problems when you’re trying to make decisions based on outdated information.

To illustrate why, let’s look at some examples where lags in your data processing can cause problems:

• Automated trading: Here, outdated market information could mean final trading prices are higher than expected, placing further strain on limited investment budgets. 
• Fraud detection: Consumer funds could be at risk from theft if detection systems can’t identify fraud attempts quickly and accurately enough.
• Process optimization: Safety processes may not trigger in time to protect workers if information about manufacturing equipment is delayed. 

It’s clear that when data streams lag, budgets, service levels and other systems can become less effective. So, while small gaps may not mean much, larger gaps can quickly cause problems. 

Smaller time lags in your analytics are also becoming a reality thanks to the new advances in big data technologies. McKinsey forecasts show that there are fewer technical reasons for digital systems to lag in the first place nowadays. As a result, if businesses don’t proactively seek real-time analytics capabilities, they could lose out to competitors as they adopt newer cloud-native tools.

Which analytics tools work on real-time data? 

Sharing data for real-time processing means you’ll need a cloud-native analytics tool that can interact with your data warehouse and process big data stores easily. An obvious choice here is Astrato which offers real-time analytics features. 

While there are other Business Intelligence tools on the market, not all are cloud-native. This means they don’t offer the ‘perfect fit’ that Astrato does across your digital environment and may struggle to offer true real-time insights. By contrast, Astrato’s cloud-native architecture means it’s highly capable of dealing with big data stores in real time. Astrato pulls information from your data warehouse, so there’s minimal lag in your analytics speed.  

What’s more, Astrato is a platform-agnostic analytics tool, meaning it’s a highly flexible solution that can grow with your data visualization needs. Astrato also has the added benefit of being able to process vast amounts of sensitive data, too. As a result, you don’t have to worry about data breaches, because security and privacy is deeply embedded into the platform. 

To top it all off, Astrato provides a seamless user experience via its low-code interface. As a result, your Business Users can pull insights from your data warehouse easily, and swiftly turn them into digestible reports for other departments in just a few clicks. 

How to get started with real-time reporting with Astrato 

Adopting a new analytics solution can seem daunting, but Astrato makes it simple. As we’ve explained, Astrato is a platform-agnostic Business Intelligence tool. This means it can be quickly and easily deployed no matter what Cloud platform or data warehouse you’re already using. Astrato can integrate with BigQuery, Snowflake, Dremio, and PostgreSQL, so you can effortlessly introduce it into your tech environment and access new insights.

Once Astato is up and running, you can get to the exciting bit: taking advantage of real-time data analytics via data apps and interactive dashboards. Unlike other BI tools, Astrato doesn’t require previous experience with analytics, data science, or data visualization. Instead, the point-and-click interface and drag-and-drop features mean you can build impactful dashboards without delay. 

For example, Astrato offers a variety of workbooks with eye-catching designs and pre-formatted templates. This means that all you have to do is select which datasets you’d like to be visualized. Then, Astrato will populate the workbook plots with the right analytics on demand. From here, you can make tweaks to bring it more within your brand, or experiment with new plot types to highlight key business trends. 

You can also try out our “demo data set” so you don’t have to wait for approval on your own data source to be connected before you start playing around with different visualizations. 

Finally, Astrato does all of this without breaking the bank. The tiered pricing framework offers businesses of all sizes the right solution to enhance their data visualization capabilities. So, whether you’re just getting started with big data analytics or you’re looking to mature your use of historical analysis or predictive analytics, you can with Astrato! The flexible analytics features mean you can uncover new insights into opportunities and risks to your organization, easily. 

Tips for real-time data analytics with Astrato 

Take it from the experts – here are a few tips on getting started with data visualization and accessing real-time insights with Astrato:   

1. Add new data, alter targets, or even comment on your data from one centralized dashboard with Astrato’s Writeback feature.  The tool helps you close the feedback loop in your organization, give more context to your data and draw on expertise from your wider team.
    
2. Embed live reports across your organization and make real-time insights available everywhere. Astrato allows you to embed real-time insights into your other applications and access helpful analytics on the latest developments in your business.
    
3. Stay up to date with our roadmap to take advantage of the latest features. You’ll see which features we’re currently working on or have recently completed, allowing you to enhance your Business Intelligence with cutting-edge tools. Plus, you can help build the future of Astrato by making suggestions about features that you’d like to see.

See Astrato in action today 

Astrato is a next-generation data visualization and analytics solution which can empower everyone with cutting-edge Business Intelligence. Take advantage of real-time analytics today and stay ahead of your competition. Learn more about adopting Astrato in your business and book a demo.