Business analytics: Why now and what next?

Business analytics is a revolution that is impossible to miss. At its core, business analytics is about leveraging value from data. Instead of being referred to as the ‘sludge of the information age,’ data has recently been deemed ‘the new oil.’ While data can be employed for purposes such as detecting new opportunities, identifying market niches, and developing new products and services, it is also notoriously amorphous and hard to extract value from. In this Guest Editors’ Perspective, we first present a structural framework for deriving value from business analytics. Extracting value from data requires aligning strategy and desirable behaviors to business performance management in conjunction with analytic tasks and capabilities. We then introduce three special articles that provide in-depth insights regarding how business analytics is being employed in the management of healthcare, accounting, and supply chains.