Businesses continue to become more active in the adoption and use of reporting analytics tools to get more out of their data and streamline accounting processes for several different departments. Not only are these technologies reducing strain and driving both the accuracy and efficiency of reporting, they are also helping companies become more responsive to changes and fluctuations taking place that would be otherwise challenging to get past without access to analytics. 

Research into consumer behaviors and working to identify sources of waste in operations are just two of the common pursuits embarked upon by reporting analytics users, but the applications of the solutions are expanding rapidly as time goes on and more leaders get comfortable with the procedures involved. One of the more prominent statements made by experts, analysts and even government officials regarding the use of advanced analytics actually traces back to the advantages of the technology for reducing risk and mitigate security threats. 

Because data security performance is dependent upon timely and accurate information of vulnerabilities, as well as the knowledge of what needs to be done to completely patch the potential point of intrusion, intelligence platforms are obvious choices for companies that want to beef up their protection against breach. One new report actually argued that these technologies might be the best foundation for businesses to work on in their security endeavors today and in the future. 

Getting smart
Gartner recently released a statement affirming that expenditures on security have been higher than ever before in the past two years, but this has not appeared to slow down the increasing frequency and associated damages of data breach. In many ways, this might mean that money is being wasted on irrelevant or ineffective security investments, whereas a more intelligent approach could lead to lower expenditures and stronger protection. 

One of the more important aspects of modern IT security involves the detection of intrusions in real-time, as the most damaging breaches tend to be the ones that go unnoticed for long periods of time. The analysts pointed out that analytics platforms are highly capable of speeding up the identification of vulnerabilities and attacks, thus saving companies a wealth of money and resources compared to when they do not have a mechanism to bring breaches into the light more quickly. 

"Breach detection is top of mind for security buyers and the field of security technologies claiming to find breaches or detect advanced attacks is at an all-time noise level," Gartner research director Eric Ahlm affirmed. "Security analytics platforms endeavor to bring situational awareness to security events by gathering and analyzing a broader set of data, such that the events that pose the greatest harm to an organization are found and prioritized with greater accuracy."

Getting smarter in the security arena can be viewed as an important step toward more resilient continuity, as businesses cannot always survive the damages of a major event. 

Investments are up
Again, while security is a novel pursuit, companies are really starting to broaden their horizons when it comes to the use of reporting analytics tools for newer purposes. With this in mind, it should not be surprising that the latest report from Research and Markets revealed that spending on analytics is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 10.3 percent between last year and 2019. 

Should this prediction come to fruition, it would translate to $66 billion in annual expenditures on reporting analytics solutions by 2019, further illustrating how advantageous it might be to begin using these intelligence and automation technologies soon and get the jump on competitors in the process.