ET MSME Day 2023: How MSMEs can Leverage Data Analytics to Become Smarter and More Efficient

Data analytics has gathered a lot of attention in recent years. Advantages such as a reduction in costs, increasing efficiencies, making smarter business decisions and understanding demand patterns make it beneficial for any business.

Especially in the case of MSMEs, incorporating data analytics tools can imply more opportunities to optimise costs across various sectors. According to a report by Research and Markets, the global big data and business analytics market was valued at $294.16 billion in 2022. The market value is anticipated to grow to $662.63 billion by 2028.

Data analytics has gathered a lot of attention in recent years. Advantages such as a reduction in costs, increasing efficiencies, making smarter business decisions and understanding demand patterns make it beneficial for any business.

Especially in the case of MSMEs, incorporating data analytics tools can imply more opportunities to optimise costs across various sectors. According to a report by Research and Markets, the global big data and business analytics market was valued at $294.16 billion in 2022. The market value is anticipated to grow to $662.63 billion by 2028.

Big data and business analytics, the report says, refers to the process of gathering useful information from a large set of structured and unstructured data for discovering hidden patterns and analysing real-time information. “Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are proving to be essential instruments to keep control over increasing amounts of data and to enable real-time execution,” it adds.

Soham Chokshi, CEO and Co-Founder, Shipsy, a logistics software solutions provider, says that data analytics help to highlight gaps like route diversions, unplanned stoppages, and mismanaged docking schedules with regards to delivery productivity. “By analysing a particular customer’s historical availability data, businesses can automatically recommend personalised delivery time slots allowing businesses to reduce cost and boost customer experience by increasing first-attempt success rates,” he says.

The firm has witnessed customers seeing cost efficiencies by using analytics to plan routes. For instance, the company claims their customers have reduced last-mile costs by 14%, increased vehicle capacity utilisation by 31% via ensuring intelligent load consolation, saved 18% in route planning and optimisation time and decreased instances of misroutes by 64%.

Others from the industry agree, saying that the right interpretation of data can pave the way for good and informed decision-making among MSMEs. Ramakrishnan Venkataraman, Director-Customer Role Experience, Dassault Systemes India, says that the role of data analytics has evolved immensely over time. “Earlier, data analytics was primarily used to understand and optimise business operations. Today, it has a larger role to play, especially in augmenting the ability of any business to manage the unexpected through powerful actionable insights,” he says.

Explaining further, Venkataraman adds that most MSMEs have to race against time during the early stage of the business. At such a time, a business intelligence platform facilitates a better understanding of the time spent on each process. Such actionable insights, in turn, can help MSMEs boost revenue and meet tight deadlines. “With the right insights, MSMEs can streamline business operations through spend optimisation and allocation as well as discover new sources to augment revenue and profitability of the business. With clarity on department-wise spending and resource allocation, MSMEs can identify the areas where they can save on costs. They can hence spend the limited resources effectively during the early stages of business.”

There is, however, a catch. Delving on the subject, Venkataraman says that effective analytics can be challenging, as it involves handling complex data structures that lie underneath. “Often, it is more about the data than it is about the tool. The tool should be able to identify, analyse and contextualise the available data to generate useful reports. The essence of data analytics is therefore, not only in capturing real-time data but also in identifying patterns from data that has already been captured,” he says.

The company’s 3DEXPERIENCE platform on the cloud, powered by leading big data engines like Netvibes, boasts of helping MSME customers keep abreast of the trends and technological advancement happening in industries, and being ahead of the curve while competing in the global marketplace.

If MSMEs want to build a niche for themselves in a new and dynamic work environment, embracing novel ways of approaching data is integral to having streamlined and cost-effective operations in place. It will not only help them be more agile and competitive but also build awareness on making their internal processes sharper and efficient in the long run.