How Ugandan companies can benefit from Big Data Analytics/Data science

Data science refers to a combination of statistics, mathematics and programming in handling big data(a high amount of data of a variety of types processed at high speeds) to clean it, establish patterns, solve problems or use in decision making.

Every business today, whether big or small manages considerable amounts of data collected at numerous points in day to day business operations. Sources of this data can be company records, social media, company website traffic, marketing surveys, and so many others.

This information can be used to describe what has already happened for example when handling questions like how did our sales department perform last year or can be used to predict and answer questions like what might happen to sales of a particular product when a particular marketing strategy is implemented. The former is usually referred to as Business Intelligence and the latter Predictive analytics or machine learning.

The most common examples of data science in action can be observed in internet search results like on Google where one types a word and is given various related links to checkout and in recommender systems like on YouTube where one is referred to similar videos or in Facebook's list of people you may know.

Did you know? By 2020, about 1.7 megabytes of new information will be created every second for every human on the planet.

Data science if used effectively can benefit businesses in the following ways;

Understanding customer behavior: data science can be used to study customer/consumer behavior by understanding how and when a consumer will buy a particular product. This can be done through a machine learning technique referred to as market basket analysis.

Price optimization; statistical analysis can be used to establish a price elasticity of demand which gives an optimal price that a producer can work with.

Customer care: Data science can be used to improve customer care through the use of chat-bots. This is an application which studies behavior of customers overtime and provides responses to their questions. This app relies on automation of responses since most customer queries are similar. A blue floating icon on this blog that lies at the bottom is a simple example of a chat-bot implemented on this site to handle queries and help you navigate as well.

A machine learning Technic called sentiment analysis can be carried out on social media text to understand people's emotions. A company can be able to understand what emotions it's customers have towards a product or marketing strategy it has used.

Machine learning can also be used in fraud detection, risk management, etc

Conclusion:
Data science if implemented well can increase profitability of any company through increasing sales and reducing costs.

This above post is based on research and personal opinion by the author.

If you wish to:

Contact the author Arthur Kakande directly through service4businessweknow@gmail.com