Data Analytics

What is data analytics?

Data analytics, or data analysis, is a science that comprises the tools, technologies, techniques and processes by which an organisation uses data to improve productivity and enhance business gain. Data scientists and researchers also rely on data analytics to prove or disprove scientific models, theories and hypotheses. Data analytics encompasses everything from fundamental business intelligence, reporting and online analytical processing (OLAP) to more advanced analytics. These advanced forms of analytics can include:

• data mining, which involves sorting through and examining large data sets to identify anomalies, correlations and patterns to calculate outcomes
• predictive analytics, which enables organisations to draw on current and historical facts and figures to make predictions about unknown future events, such as customer behaviour
• machine learning, an area of artificial intelligence that studies the algorithms and mathematical models that computer systems use to incrementally improve their performance of a particular task; it’s based on the notion that systems can learn from data and information (including observations and real-world interactions), find patterns and make decisions autonomously, with little help from humans.

By extracting and cataloguing data, organisations can pinpoint and evaluate relationships, patterns and trends so they can glean insights and draw conclusions based on the data and use these to make informed decisions. Such data can include information on:

• customers
• competitor practices
• business processes
• the industry
• market conditions

A number of techniques exist for performing data analytics, and the methods you choose depend on the needs of your business.

Why is data analytics important?

Today, we’re living in a data-driven world, and it’s only going to become more so tomorrow and into the future. To make the right decisions for your business to succeed, you need the right data. So, it’s important to have a data analytics strategy in place. Such plans can help organisations:

• boost revenue
• cut costs
• improve efficiencies
• enhance marketing efforts
• strengthen customer focus and customer service
• respond quickly and effectively to market events and industry trends
• reduce risk
• gain a competitive edge

Nexis Data as a Service

LexisNexis has decades of experience as a content aggregator. Our Nexis Data as a Service (DaaS) offering connects you to highly relevant content that suits a variety of data-analysis methods and uses. Nexis DaaS provides access to:

• news data
• company and industry data
• legal information
• magazines and trade journals
• intellectual property (IP) and patents data
• newswires and press releases

News data

Along with leading daily newspapers from across the globe, you have access to transcripts of radio and television broadcasts, within Nexis DaaS news datasets.

These provide depth and breadth of coverage on political, social, and economic drivers and commentary concerning local and international events. Nexis DaaS also has global online news sources in 75 languages and more than 100 countries and adds millions of posts and articles to its collection every day.

Company and industry data

Whatever data-analysis tools and techniques your organisation uses, you can benefit from the vast scope of our data. Nexis DaaS business data covers company profiles, corporate hierarchies, company and financial reports, mergers-and-acquisitions activity and more. Draw on this information to analyse financial trends, track your brand portfolio and perform other Big Data applications.\

Legal information

Nexis DaaS can also put a vast collection of legal datasets at your fingertips. For in-depth data analysis, organisations can access

• global treatises and court dockets
• risk management and compliance data on politically exposed persons (PEPs)
• sanctions and watchlists
• supply-chain information related to manufacturing and shipping

Magazines and trade journals

Tap in to applicable magazines and trade journals for critical perspectives and intelligence on industry drivers and company events.

Intellectual property (IP) and patents data

With the help of aggregated content from more than 80 data sources and patent authorities, businesses can develop innovative technologies and new products.

Newswires and press releases

Stay up to date and ahead of the competition with LexisNexis’ continuously updated database of events and news of the day.

The CORE advantage

Along with our unparalleled collection of sources, Nexis DaaS delivers robust enrichment and data-normalisation processes that empower you to feed the relevant data into data-analysis tools using easy-to-integrate application programming interfaces (APIs).

What’s more, Nexis DaaS provides customers with what we call the CORE (Comprehensive, Optimal, Robust, Experienced) advantage:

Nexis DaaS is comprehensive because it taps into alternative data sources, unique for their volume and variety, to support data analysis and interpretation for a range of financial, corporate, risk, academic and brand data research.

Nexis DaaS is optimal because it grants you access to semi-structured data sets that align to your unique data needs and can energise your Big Data projects, such as trend analysis, predictive analytics, machine learning and more.

Nexis DaaS is robust because it fuels your data-analysis tools with smart content enhanced with semantic analysis to drive precision search, increased relevance, and faster discovery for quantitative and qualitative data analysis.

Nexis DaaS is experienced because it draws on LexisNexis’ more than 45 years of leadership in the content aggregation space. Our company pioneered the use of machine learning and data visualisation in our applications decades before they saw mainstream use. With the benefit of this DaaS experience and partnership, you can move from data integration to intelligent, actionable insights.

Find out more about how Nexis DaaS can power your data analysis and provide actionable insights.