This document discusses how data analytics can help businesses overcome challenges and gain insights. It begins by explaining why businesses need to change by embracing new data-driven paradigms. It then outlines some common challenges like a lack of digital strategy or perceived complexity. The document proposes addressing these challenges through a CLERA approach: clarify needs, list data requirements, extract insights, adopt agile solutions, and replicate successes. It provides several use cases of applying classification, visualization, detection, and prediction techniques to gain insights from data in areas like reviews, sales, foot traffic, and fraud. Finally, it concludes that accounting and analytics must become integrated and businesses should embrace transformation to turn data into meaningful insights.

1. Business Advisors to Growing Businesses 1
30 August 2018
From data to insights
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2. Business Advisors to Growing Businesses 2
Agenda
Why, What and How
• Why need to change
• What the challenges are
• How it might be done
Sharing of use cases
• Classification
• Visualisation
• Detection
• Prediction
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3. Business Advisors to Growing Businesses 3
Data
analytics
• Gathering of data
• Analysing the data
• Obtaining insights from the data
New
paradigm
• The Economist – “World’s most valuable resource today is no longer oil
but data”
• Embed data analytics into business and processes for future growth
• Globally – Fast and furious
• Locally – CFE strategy, E-invoicing framework, etc.
• New paradigm – Accounting and analytics become integrated
Why need to change
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4. Business Advisors to Growing Businesses 4
What the challenges are
Lack of digital
strategy
Perceived
complexity
Not knowing
where to start
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5. Business Advisors to Growing Businesses 5
How it might be done
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6. Business Advisors to Growing Businesses 6
How it might be done
C
Clarify business needs
• Clear idea of business needs
• Consider existing business model, desired outcome, budget and priorities
L
List data requirements
• Based on business needs, gather data for analysis
• External data should also be considered
E
Extract actionable insights
• Asking right questions
• Answering these questions provide deeper understanding of business and customers
A
Adopt agile solutions
• Consider starting small instead of launching mega-projects
• Small initial steps help build deeper understanding of needs and approach
R
Replicate and expand
• Understand what works
• Scale up and replicate across different business units, expand on problem statement
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7. Business Advisors to Growing Businesses 7
Sharing of use cases
Classification
Visualisation
Detection
Prediction
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8. Business Advisors to Growing Businesses 8
Classification
Online reviews for F&B restaurant chain
• In digital age, online reviews are word of mouth marketing
on steroids, both in scale and speed
• Mastercard – “52% of Singaporeans read restaurant
reviews online before deciding to visit a dining place”
But…
• Online reviews located in numerous places… Time-
consuming to extract
• Usually in free form (unstructured)… Difficult to sort,
classify and rate
Data into insights…
• Automated process of extracting online reviews
• Artificial intelligence (machine learning) to classify reviews
into correct topics and sentiments, and assign rating
• Able to meaningfully analyse and track improvement
initiatives
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9. Business Advisors to Growing Businesses 9
Classification
Highlights…
• External data as important as internal data
• Non-financial and unstructured data very
useful in prediction and profit improvement
• Other applications of machine learning in
accounting:
✓ Analyse accounting records for
exceptions
✓ Classify invoices into correct accounts
✓ Classify transactions into appropriate
categories
• Use of machine learning by accountants
rapidly moving towards reality
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10. Business Advisors to Growing Businesses 10
Visualisation
Highlights…
• Visualisation plays crucial role in data analytics
• Easier to process large amounts of complex data using visuals
• Well-designed dashboards can be simple yet powerful
• Enables decision-makers to grasp difficult concepts or identify patterns
• Increasing use of business intelligence tools due to overwhelming amount of data
• Real time analysis using robotics process automation or database integration
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11. Business Advisors to Growing Businesses 11
Visualisation
F&B restaurant chain
• Interactive heat map showing total revenue
by outlet and by time of day
• Easy to analyse at a glance and spot
unusual phenomena
• Helps to ask the right questions and
develop initiatives for improvement
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12. Business Advisors to Growing Businesses 12
Visualisation
Shopping mall
• Overlay floor plan with polygons to
create interactive dashboard with
geographical dimension
• Highly visual tenant analysis by:
✓ Rental yield psf
✓ AR turnover days
✓ Tenant mix
✓ Others
• Augment with other tools (e.g.,
beacons and tracking devices) to
monitor foot traffic and reconfigure
layout to increase footfall
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13. Business Advisors to Growing Businesses 13
Visualisation
Consumer products retail chain
• Outlet sales psf vs rental psf analysis
• Interactive scatter plot… Identify
improvement opportunities at a glance
• Visually clear that a number of outlets
are performing sub-optimally
Rental psf too high?
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14. Business Advisors to Growing Businesses 14
Detection
Highlights…
• Important objective for accountants and
auditors
• Many ways to use data analytics to detect
outliers and anomalies to identify potential
fraud patterns
• Applications include…
✓ Duplicate vendor payments
✓ Possible split purchases to circumvent
approval limits
✓ Fraudulent or excessive employee
claims
Use case…
• Large real estate company
• Numerous journals posted by accountants
each day
• Benford’s Law – Law of first digit
Benford’s Law
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15. Business Advisors to Growing Businesses 15
Prediction
Highlights…
• Applications include…
✓ Predict future sales
✓ Predict fraud before they snowball
✓ Predict customers’ buying behaviour
• Can be combined with other techniques,
including:
✓ Machine learning
✓ Non-financial and unstructured data
Use case…
• Wholesaler of edible products
• Modelled relationship between sales
and retail/F&B indices using
autoregressive model
• If done properly, level of prediction
accuracy usually high
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16. Business Advisors to Growing Businesses 16
Conclusion
• New paradigm emerging where accounting and analytics become
integrated
• Relevant to all… No organisation too small or too old for
transformation
• Mind-set… Not just about acquiring new skills or tools
• Rethink processes and transform the way we operate
• Turning data into insights… Change our thinking and embrace
transformation
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