Retro Analytics for Products: New Space Product Domain

Analytics has taken a significant space in our daily life. Its aspects are so broad that we use it very frequently, knowingly or unknowingly. It is the same for companies. Large-scale transformations utilize this new domain to leverage the best available opportunities. Covid has shown us a new dimension of making everything digital, which was not planned or thought of so well in cases where digitalization seems harsh and impossible. Companies are now moving towards cloud-based operations and artificial intelligence services. Customer use cases and business value from digital activity have plunged, generating huge data. Cloud comes as a savior in these situations, and every company tries its best to get hold of the latest technology. The time has now come for product managers who should be able to answer the how and why about events rather than just the what.

For apps-based services, Software as a service (SAAS) applications have evolved faster, and India is the house of 23 unicorn start-ups, where all 23 have a business based on digital services. Products need to be embedded with new technologies. There is also a need to leverage all the available data. For product managers, product development, or SAAS, requires addressing a few important aspects for business growth: scalability, limitations of the use of analytics, customization capability and affordability, infrastructure challenges, and overcoming costs. If all these pose a challenge, the company has Retro Analytics, which were undoubtedly not planned from the cloud or modern SAAS.

For product managers, it is necessary to make their products stand out and book profits in the market. Agile is a key element for digital apps and services to be flexible. Modern analytics plays a vital role in building a 100% cloud-native, scalable and flexible system that is applicable to microservices, developer-friendly, and affordable. One must understand that modern analytics embedment in the business brings value, like increasing revenue, reducing churn, and making.

A larger count of happy customers while competition is apart. Modern analytics brings out the scope of predictive and prescriptive in real-time to improve situations and operations and tackle upcoming issues smoothly. Customer sales are not the only aspect that can hamper the whole business but also its downtime. We have seen global outages of Facebook and Instagram and their impact on lives. Even for small-scale businesses, this is crucial. Being more independent, secure, and robust in analytics and technology brings companies on the safer side, considering such unpredictable incidents.

Retro analytics key indicators are non-scalable options, hard-to-implement new technology, or new features in products. User behavior is frequently changing; products need to capture those valuable insights in real-time and within the churn time of customers. Retro analytics is safe but slow. Chances of error are also high with modern analytics. However, outcomes are more fruitful, creating unexpected challenges. Retro is limited with dashboarding and reporting to limited questions; Retrolands limited key metrics, which we want to analyze, but modern analytics can do the same inefficiently, affordably, and quickly. Retro analytics can be called static due to its characteristics and modern due to its dynamic nature. One of the characteristics of retro is that we do it based on hypothesis, but for current, we derive everything from data.

As the famous saying goes, data is the new oil. Whoever uses it efficiently can make advanced progress in the business. Product managers can create products that will be better and future-ready. At IIM Kashipur, MBA in Business Analytics serves as the bridge between Retro and Modern Analytics. Using advanced infrastructure available at the campus, instructors teach new skills, enabling students to take the opportunity to lead any team in both ways.

Authors: Ayushi Jha

Indian Institute of Management Kashipur

MBA 2021–23