Insights-as-a-Service for transformative business outcomes

You own a business bombarded by data from an array of sources. But you know not how to extract insights from this data deluge to power transformative outcomes. You aren’t a forlorn warrior on the battlefield of data management. A lot many enterprises have limited resources and infrastructure to dredge value from the pool of heterogeneous data. That’s where Insights-as-a-Service (IaaS) helps. 

IaaS is a cloud-based service that provides insights to business corporations and also aids in providing the concrete steps that are required to leverage these insights towards achieving business goals. It has an edge over SaaS because, in addition to insights and analytics, it offers action plans. As Big Data gets bigger, IaaS is billed as the next big thing in Analytics. 

Trends in the IaaS market

The democratization of IaaS is still a long pipeline in waiting. A study by IBM Business Tech Trends shows that only one in five companies have the needed skills to gather and use insights effectively. And those who have them are the clear winners- they are nine times more efficient at penetrating new markets, seven times more effective at developing new revenue streams and three times more efficient in their operations. 

The market for IaaS is on an uptrend. It is projected to grow at a CAGR of 22.86 per cent during the forecast period of 2022-29, reaching a value of $19.98 billion by 2029 (Data Bridge Market Research). The need for customer management worldwide is a major accelerator. Moreover, IoT, urbanization, digitization, and the widespread use of software globally for various purposes will open up ample opportunities for IaaS companies. 

A lowdown on how IaaS works

IaaS uses predictive analytics and business intelligence (BI) to glean effective actions from data warehouses. Companies often don’t have the robust infrastructure and IT personnel needed to parse valuable insights from the enormous volumes of data that they constantly produce. IaaS platforms address this need for in-depth analytics on the cloud and provide solutions to unique data-specific challenges. IaaS can be offered in three distinct ways – business benchmarking, business process improvement services and improving business productivity. And it helps unlock actionable insights out of three different datasets- company data, usage data and syndicated data. Action Generator is a crucial component of IaaS solutions used to generate a set of steps or actions that an enterprise needs to take to reach its business goals. Many IaaS also offer a user interface for business users. It’s a convenient tool to view data and analytics and derive prudent conclusions. Though built on a standard framework, the IaaS platform is typically customizable, secure and scalable and designed to support Big Data. 

Though premised on a standard platform, IaaS is fully customizable and is delivered in a safe and secure environment to protect data. IaaS is an immediate and bankable solution for expanding data and information needs since it supports big data alongside core data and integrates it. What’s more, its scalable and secure, allows testing of new data and scenarios without additional investments and provides enterprises with relevant and timely insights from industry and analytical experts.

A key feature of IaaS providers is their ability to improve business outcomes. For example, Capgemini offers Data-as-a-Service, Analytics-as-a-Service, and IaaS. Data-as-a-Service provides raw data on which analytical applications can be built, Analytics-as-a-Service produces results from analyses, and IaaS provides tangible results such as increased revenue.

Monetizing Data with IaaS

The purpose of Insights as a Service is not only to derive information from your own data, but also to identify other sources of data that may provide help in answering your specific business questions. Many companies discover that despite having a lot of data, if you look really closely you may find that it is duplicated, missing critical information, or irrelevant to the business question. Companies need to assess their data in order to determine what additional data they may need, just as people may not know what they need until they clean out their closets.

This is where data itself becomes the product. Data insights partners can provide you with sourced data that can support your business case. A company that has already aggregated data on telecommunications buying trends can feed their data into your own telecommunications data in order to provide an accurate picture of customer churn indicators or upselling opportunities.

The Future- ‘Insights’ Out

The spike in demand for real-time insights and data analytics is gravitating businesses towards IaaS solutions. The trend will only grow in the future as companies get cognizant of more value that can be unlocked from IaaS. As niche technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) leap ahead, the capabilities of services like IaaS will scale up, enabling them to provide even more timely and accurate insights into customer behaviour, market trends, and other key business metrics. So, think inside out for your next strategic business decision and deliver results with ‘insights’ out. 

The article has been written by Jayajit Dash