Large Indian B2C firms lead analytics push

Consumer-facing businesses in banking, telecoms and retail are leading the way in the adoption of analytics internally.

According to Analytics India Magazine, about 5% of analytics adoption in India is by domestic businesses for internal use. A massive 80% of analytics adoption is by businesses offering analytics services to customers globally and in India. The other 15% being done in India is within the captive centres of global companies where back office services are delivered.

Analytics India looked at 15 large consumer-facing businesses in India to reveal the penetration levels and maturity of analytics within these businesses.

In banking, ICICI, HDFC, Axis, Yes Bank and Kotak Mahindra were studied. Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular were included from the telecoms sector.

In the automotive sector, TATA Motors, Mahindra&Mahindra were included as well as ecommerce firms Flipkart, Snapdeal and Jabong.

The other businesses included were Reliance Industries, HUL and ITC.

The study found that, in terms of the amount of analytics being used internally, ICICI bank was the highest ranked, followed by Flipkart and Bharti Airtel.

In July last year, Mukeshkumar Jain, CIO at ICICI Bank told serachbusinessintelligence.in that big data implementation will be crucial to addressing the opportunities and threats in the new evolving environment. “We believe this is the right time to invest in big data for a bank of our size to better engage with our customers at various touch points.”

In terms of the quality and depth of analytics function, Bharti Airtel was rankled highest, followed by HDFC Bank.

“Apart from the above 15 companies, the analytics adoption is very low within domestic Indian market,” said Analytics India Magazine.

The study showed that Indian businesses are behind corporates in western economies in terms of using analytics to support business decision making. “It’s evident that the adoption within Indian domestic companies is poised to grow sooner than later, leading to more efficiency in data collection, as well as final business decision making.”

Gartner recently reported that Indian businesses will increase spending on business intelligence and analytics software by 15% to reach 8,228 crore in 2014. The analyst company said that, for the fourth year in a row, analytics ranks as the number one priority in its CIO survey in India.

The focus on analytics going forward is one that ITC is adopting. ITC CIO VVR Babu recently told searchcio.in that the conglomerate's fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) IT teams are working on enabling data-based analysis through dashboards and analytics.