Through the process of performing analysis you may raise additional questions, but the goal is to identify answers, or at least potential answers that can be tested. The goal of analysis is to answer questions by interpreting the data at a deeper level and providing actionable recommendations. Good reporting should raise questions about the business from its end users. Reporting helps companies to monitor their online business and be alerted to when data falls outside of expected ranges. Analysis transforms data and information into insights.
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_Reporting translates raw data into information. Reporting: The process of organizing data into informational summaries in order to monitor how different areas of a business are performing.****Īnalysis: The process of exploring data and reports in order to extract meaningful insights, which can be used to better understand and improve business performance.
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Purposeīefore covering the differing roles of reporting and analysis, let’s start with some high-level definitions of these two key areas of analytics.**** It’s important to remember that reporting and analysis only have the opportunity of being valuable if they are acted upon. Both reporting and analysis play roles in influencing and driving the actions which lead to greater value in organizations.įor the purposes of this blog post, I’m not going delve deeply into what happens before or after the reporting and analysis stages, but I do recognize that both areas are critical and challenging steps in the overall data-driven decision-making process. In other words, the ultimate goal for reporting and analysis is to increase sales and reduce costs (i.e., add value). Most companies have analytics solutions in place to derive greater value for their organizations. Although I’m primarily focusing on web analytics, companies can run into the same challenge with other analytics tools (e.g., ad serving, email, search, social, etc.).
#Reporting tools for data analysis full#
Without a clear distinction of the differences, an organization may sell itself short in one area (typically analysis) and not achieve the full benefits of its web analytics investment. While both of these areas of web analytics draw upon the same collected web data, reporting and analysis are very different in terms of their purpose, tasks, outputs, delivery, and value.
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You may have seen various people use the terms “reporting” and “analysis” as though they were interchangeable terms or almost synonyms.