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Big Data Analytics Thinking and Big Data Analytics Intelligence

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DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.15678.31041

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 To cite this paper: Sun Z (2020) Big data analytics thinking and big data analytics
intelligence. PNG UoT BAIS 5(6): 1-11.

Big Data Analytics Thinking and Big Data Analytics

Intelligence
Zhaohao Sun

Centre of Bog Data Analytics and Intelligent Systems

Department of Business Studies
PNG University of Technology, Lae 411, PNG
[email protected]

Abstract. Big data and analytics intelligence have significantly appealed to

academia and industries. This paper will examine Big data analytics thinking and big
data analytics intelligence as an emerging frontier for big data analytics, business
intelligence and artificial intelligence (AI). More specifically, this paper will provide
the fundamentals of analytics thinking and analytics intelligence based on the state-of-
the-art of research and development of academia and industries. Then it looks at data
analytics thinking and data analytics intelligence, big data analytics thinking and big
data analytics intelligence and their interrelationships. This paper proposes an inclusive
approach to big data analytics intelligence. Then it presents a unified technological
foundation of AI-driven big data analytics intelligence. The approach proposed in this
paper might facilitate research and development of business intelligence, big data
analytics thinking, big data analytics intelligence, AI and data science.

Key words: big data intelligence, big data analytics, analytics thinking, analytics
intelligence, artificial intelligence (AI), data science.

1 Introduction

Analytics thinking and analytics intelligence has significantly appealed to academia

and industries thanks to the dramatic development of big data and related technology
in the past decade (Wang, 2012). Big data analytics thinking and big data analytics
intelligence are emerging frontier from research and development. However, the
following research questions are still significant for academia and industries.
1. What is intelligence in x intelligence? where x is in {data, analytics, data
analytics, big data analytics, business analytics}.
2. What are the relationships among analytics thinking, data analytics
thinking, and big data analytics thinking?
3. What are the relationships among analytics intelligence, data analytics
intelligence, and big data analytics intelligence?

This paper will address these three research questions. To this end, this paper will
provide the fundamentals of big data analytics thinking and big data analytics
intelligence based on the state-of-the-art of research and development of academia and
industries. Then it looks at data analytics thinking and data analytics intelligence, big
data analytics thinking and big data analytics intelligence and their interrelationships.
This paper proposes an inclusive approach to big data analytics intelligence. Then it
presents a unified technological foundation of AI-driven big data analytics intelligence.
The remainder of this article is organized as follows. Section 2 provides the
fundamentals of big data analytics thinking and big data analytics intelligence. Sections
3 and 4 looks at data analytics thinking and data analytics intelligence, big data
analytics thinking and big data analytics intelligence and their interrelationships.
Section 5 proposes an inclusive approach to business analytics intelligence. Sections 6
presents a unified technological foundation of AI-driven big data analytics intelligence.
Final sections discuss the related work and end this paper with some concluding
remarks and future work.

2 Fundamentals of Big Data Analytics Thinking and Big Data

Analytics Intelligence

This section provides the state-of-the-art fundamentals of big data analytics thinking
and big data analytics intelligence based on the principle of research as a search, which
also makes the research stand on the shoulders of the giants in the world.
From a viewpoint of research methodology, this section uses Google Scholar
indexed publications search, which reflects the state of the art research of the scholars
on big data analytics thinking and big data analytics intelligence worldwide. Then it
uses the market analysis provided by Google Web indexed websites search, which
reflects the start of the art research and development of the academia, industries and
governments on big data analytics thinking and big data analytics intelligence. Both
are excellent complements for understanding the state-of-the-art big data analytics
thinking and big data analytics intelligence and more.
From a mathematical viewpoint, the relationships among analytics thinking, data
analytics thinking, big data analytics thinking are as follows

Big data analytics thinking  Data analytics thinking  Analytics thinking 

thinking.
(1)
The research is based on (1). Before that we first look at data intelligence and big
data intelligence.

2.1 Data intelligence and Big Data intelligence

Data intelligence is “the use of various tools and methods to analyze and transform
data into information from which valuable insight can be drawn” (OmniSci, 2020).
There are two questions in this definition. First is what is intelligence in data
intelligence from the following?
1. Is it use of various tools and methods?
2. It is to analyze and transform data into information?

2
 3. It can draw valuable insight.

Item 1 has no relationship with intelligence. Item 2 has no relationship with

intelligence either, because item 2 is an objective of any information systems (Laudon
& Laudon, 2016). Item 3 is related to intelligence, because valuable insight is what
customers and clients are expecting to make informed decisions.
The second is “if methods to analyze and transform data into information from which
valuable insight can be drawn” then can we change it into “methods to analyze and
transform data into either knowledge or intelligence (or both) from which valuable
insight can be drawn”? If this is right, then this definition should be changed to
Data intelligence is “the use of various intelligent tools and methods to analyze and
transform data or information to knowledge and intelligence or intelligent artifacts from
which valuable insight can be drawn for supporting decision making”, where intelligent
artifacts include intelligent data insights. This definition is more general than that
updated one from (OmniSci, 2020), because its updated one refers to data intelligence
as “the practice of using artificial intelligence and machine learning tools to analyze
and transform massive datasets into intelligent data insights, which can then be used to
improve services and investments”.
Data can be classified into five categories: descriptive data, prescriptive data,
diagnostic data, decisive data, and predictive data in order to develop data intelligence
(OmniSci, 2020). This basically confirms the four categories of data for data analytics:
descriptive data, prescriptive data, diagnostic data, and predictive data which
corresponding to descriptive data analytics, prescriptive data analytics, diagnostic data
analytics, and predictive data analytics (Sun & Stranieri, 2020).
The input of data using intelligent data input technology can be called intelligent
data, which is a core component of intelligent analytics (Sun & Stranieri, 2020).
intelligent data input technology provides a strong data foundation, data cleanses,
restructuring and enhancing big datasets. Intelligent data processing is a core
component of intelligent analytics as an intelligent system, it incorporates advanced
analytics techniques to enhance descriptive analytics, diagnostic analytics, prescriptive
and predictive analytics to transform big data into big information, big knowledge, big
insight, and big intelligence that support informed decisions, (OmniSci, 2020) (Sun &
Stranieri, 2020). The intelligent outputs include intelligent visualized reports for
supporting informed decision (Sun & Stranieri, 2020).
Enterprise data intelligence is used in business intelligence operations, analyzing
sales, evaluating inventories, and building customer data intelligence (OmniSci, 2020).
Data intelligence platforms and data intelligence solutions are available from data
intelligence companies such as Data Visualization Intelligence, Strategic Data
Intelligence, Global Data Intelligence (OmniSci, 2020). For example, Google analytics
is a data intelligence platform and data intelligence solution.
Big data intelligence is data intelligence for big data. Furthermore, big data
intelligence consists of a set of intelligent techniques and tools that make big data
analytics actionable and transform big data into big knowledge, big insights for
supporting decision making, and provides engagement capabilities for customers
(OmniSci, 2020). In other words, big data intelligence is a kind of intelligence driven
from intelligent big data analytics (Sun & Huo, 2019).
 Therefore, data intelligence and big data intelligence have a close relationship with
data analytics intelligence and big data analytics intelligence.

2.2 Fundamentals of Analytics Thinking and Big Data Analytics Thinking

Google scholar search for “analytics thinking” found about 74 results (0.07 sec).
These found results demonstrates that

1. Neither analytics thinking nor big data analytics thinking are in the title of
research publications.
2. Analytics thinking as a key word (together) has occurred for 33 out of 74.
There are three ways to use this term. 1. “Aristotle is still in the two
analytics thinking of the scientific method as an interrogative process” (5
occurrences). This implies that analytics dates back to the ancient Greek
time. 2. Data analytics thinking (2 occurrences ). 3. Visual analytics
thinking (2 occurrences). It should be noted that “Very often we do
analytics thinking without thinking” mentioned in the book on Heuristics
in (Pinheiro & McNeill, 2014). How to understand “analytics thinking
without thinking” is a big issue. From a logic viewpoint, it is invalid,
because analytics thinking is a part of thinking.
3. Google scholar for “Data analytics thinking” found 9 results (0.09 sec).
Not all appeared in the searched results from Google scholar for
“analytics thinking”. Further, data analytics thinking as a key word
occurred only 5 times.
4. Google scholar for “big data analytics thinking” received 2 results (0.08
sec). Both mentioned it and do not focus on it. Baboo & Kumar
mentioned “big data analytics thinking” in their article entitled “Next
generation data warehouse design with big data for big analytics and
better insights” (Baboo & Kumar, 2013).

Terms Google Web (No.) Google Scholar Remarks

(No. )
Analytics thinking 59,200 74
Data analytics 1,490 9
thinking
big data analytics 897 2
thinking
Analytics 239,000 673
intelligence
Data analytics 88,200 52
intelligence

4
 Big data Analytics 58,200 11
intelligence

Figure 1: Big data analytics thinking and big data analytics intelligence in academia
and industries.
Google search for “analytics thinking” found about 59,200 results (0.30 seconds) on
2 September 2020. Google search for “data analytics thinking” found about 1,490
results. Google search for “big data analytics thinking” found about 897 results. The
found results demonstrate that
1. Data analytics thinking or big data analytics thinking have been used in
industries.
2. “big data analytics, thinking” is occurred often in the found results.

The above analysis implied that analytics thinking, data analytics thinking, big data
analytics thinking have drawn increasing attention in industries whereas, it has not
appealed too much to the academia.

2.3 Fundamentals of Analytics Intelligence and Big Data Analytics

Intelligence

Similar to Equation (1), we have

Big data analytics intelligence  data analytics intelligence  analytics intelligence
 intelligence. (2)

Now we turn to analysis on analytics intelligence based on Google Scholar search

and Google search respectively.

Google scholar for “analytics intelligence” found about 673 results (0.08 sec) on 4
September 2020. The search demonstrates that few scholarly publications use
“Analytics intelligence” as a part of their titles although analytics intelligence has been
introduced in scholarly publications in 2012 (Chen, Chiang, & Storey, 2012). Google
scholar for “data analytics intelligence” found about 52 results (0.09 sec) on 4
September 2020. The found results demonstrate that “data analytics intelligence” as a
key word has not been appeared in scholarly publications until 2017. Data analytics
intelligence as a system has been appeared in scholarly publications in 2018. Google
scholar for “big data analytics intelligence” found about 11 results (0.09 sec) on 4
September 2020. The found results demonstrate that few scholarly publications use
“big data analytics intelligence” as a part of their titles. Big data analytics intelligence
has been founded based on either “big data”, “analytics intelligence” or “big data
analytics”, “intelligence”. Therefore, both data analytics intelligence and big data
analytics intelligence have not drawn much attention in the academia although big data
analytics has drawn significant attention in academia, industries and government (Sun
& Huo, 2019).
Google search for “analytics intelligence”, “data analytics intelligence” and “big
data analytics intelligence” found about 239,000 results (0.52 seconds), 88,200 results
(0.41 seconds), and 58,200 results (0.50 seconds) respectively on 4 September 2020.
This implies that analytics intelligence, data analytics intelligence, and big data
analytics intelligence have drawn significant attention in industries. Now we delve into
each of the top 20 found results and find that
1. Analytics intelligence has been introduced by Google based on Google
analytics in 2019. It seems that analytics intelligence is basically same as
Google analytics. What intelligence is in analytics intelligence is not clear.
2. Many companies has used “data analytics intelligence” as a marketing brand,
for example, Prime Insight.com’s https://www.primeinsight.com/data-
analytics-intelligence. “Data Analytics, Intelligence” is often occurred in the
found results.
3. Big data analytics intelligence was first mentioned by Mr. Jon Oltsik, a
principal analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group ESG (Oltsik, 2012). He
mentioned “The next-generation of security intelligence tools must provide big
data analytics intelligence…”. “big data analytics, intelligence” is often
occurred in the found results.

3 Data Analytics Thinking and Data Analytics

Intelligence
This section looks at analytics thinking and analytics intelligence. First of all,
thinking is a part of intelligence (Sun & Stranieri, 2020), then,

analytics thinking  analytics intelligence (3)

This implies that analytics thinking is more crucial than analytics intelligence from
a strategic viewpoint. This section also address the following question: what is the
principle of analytics thinking?
Google defines analytics intelligence as a set of features including algorithms used
in Google analytics that use machine learning (ML) to help you better understand and
act on your data” (Google Analytics Intelligence, 2020). This definition is based on
Google analytics intelligence, because the latter is a powerful machine learning tool
used by Google to help users better understand the analytics data (Rai, 2019).
Analytics intelligence functionality includes answers to questions, providing
insights and user and conversion modeling (Google Analytics Intelligence, 2020). For
example, you can ask Google Analytics Intelligence questions about your data in plain
English and get fast answers (Rai, 2019). Auto-generated insights from the Google
Analytics provide alerts or notifications about the big changes happening on your
website (Rai, 2019). User and conversion modeling features include smart goals, smart
lists, session quality, and conversion probability, which use ML to model conversions
and can be used in building audiences (Google Analytics Intelligence, 2020) (Rai,
2019). Auto-generated insights and conversion modeling are characteristics of modern
analytics including augmented analytics (Howson, Richardson, Sallam, & Kronz,
2019).

6
 It should be noted that this definition confuses analytics intelligence and Google
analytics, because one can say that the functionalities of Google analytics include
answers to your questions, providing insights and user and conversion modeling.
Furthermore, based on the above analysis, intelligence in analytics intelligence implies
that intelligence is a result of applying ML, and therefore, it is from applying AI,
because ML is a part of AI. The intelligence also implies the smartness from the
functionalities of analytics for business and customers. This smartness reflects the
future trend of analytics to meet more expectations and needs from customers (Sun,
Sun, & Strang, 2018).
Data analytics intelligence process generally consists of five stages: data
preparation, data mining, result validation, result visualization and explanation
(OmniSci, 2020), where results include auto-generated insights.
The future research direction is business analytics thinking and business analytics
intelligence. For detail see (Sun Z. , 2020),

4 Big Data Analytics Thinking and Big Data Analytics

Intelligence
This section looks at big data analytics thinking and big data analytics intelligence.
First of all, similar to Equation (3), the relationship between big data analytics thinking
and big data analytics intelligence is as follows

big data analytics thinking  big data analytics intelligence (4)

Where  is an inclusion relation. The more specific form the analytics is, the more
important it is for applications in the real world. For example, intelligent big data
analytics is more important than data analytics nowadays (Sun & Huo, 2019).
From a system perspective, big data analytics thinking is an integration of big data
thinking and analytics thinking as well as data analytics thinking, where big data,
analytics and thinking are elements of any business analytics thinking as a system.
Therefore, equation (4) is a theoretical foundation of business analytics thinking.
Furthermore, big data analytics intelligence is an integration of big data analytics, big
data intelligence and analytics intelligence, where big data, analytics and intelligence
are elements of any business analytics intelligence as a system. For detail, see the next
section.

5 Big Data Analytics Intelligence: An Inclusive

Approach
This section provides an inclusive approach on big data analytics intelligence
based on a cyclic model of big data analytics intelligence, illustrated in Figure 1.
Figure 1: A cyclic model of big data analytics intelligence

From Figure 1, we can see that big data analytics intelligence originated from big
data, analytics, and intelligence. Briefly,

big data analytics intelligence: = big data + analytics + intelligence (5)

Where + denotes add or integration. This is the simple representation of big data
analytics intelligence. Considering integration as a system solution, we have

Big data analytics intelligence: = Big data analytics + Big data intelligence (6)

That is, big data analytics intelligence consists of big data analytics and big data
intelligence. Or big data analytics intelligence is an integration of big data analytics and
big data intelligence. Integration of big data analytics and big data intelligence is the
current mainstream of research and development of both big data analytics and big data
intelligence (Sun Z. , 2019).

Applying intelligence as an operation to both sides of (7),

Big data analytics = big data + analytics (7)

We have

big data analytics intelligence: = big data intelligence + analytics intelligence (8)

This is another perspective to (5). That is, big data analytics intelligence is an
integration of big data intelligence and analytics intelligence (Sun & Huo, 2019).
Based on above discussion, we have

big data analytics intelligence: = big data analytics + big data intelligence

+ analytics intelligence (9)

8
 = business + analytics + intelligence
That is, from a system perspective, big data analytics intelligence is an integration
of big data analytics, big data intelligence and analytics intelligence, where big data,
analytics and intelligence are elements of any business analytics intelligence as a
system. Therefore, equation (9) is a theoretical foundation of business analytics
intelligence.

6 Foundations of AI-Driven Big Data Analytics Intelligence

This section looks at the foundation of AI-driven big data analytics intelligence as
illustrated as Figure 2.

Figure 2. Foundations of big data analytics intelligence

That is, the technological foundations of analytics include computer science, data
science, statistical modelling, and operations research (Sun & Huo, 2019).
The technological foundations of intelligence include computer science, data
science, statistics and mathematics, cognitive science and operations research (Russell
& Norvig, 2010).
The technological foundations of big data include 10 Vs, 10 Bigs, big needs and so
on (Sun, Strang, & Li, 2016).

7 Related Work and Discussion

We have mentioned a number of scholarly researches on business analytics intelligence.

In what follows, we will focus on related work and discussion on their relationships
based on the research of other researchers.
8 Conclusion

This paper provided the fundamentals of analytics thinking and analytics intelligence
based on the state-of-the-art of research and development of academia and industries.
The research demonstrated that the research and development of big data analytics
thinking and big data analytics intelligence have lagged behind that of industries. Then
it looks at data analytics thinking and data analytics intelligence, big data analytics
thinking and big data analytics intelligence and their interrelationships from a logical,
mathematical and computing perspectives. This paper proposes an inclusive approach
on big data analytics intelligence. The research demonstrates that big data analytics
intelligence is an integration of big data intelligence, big data analytics and analytics
intelligence. Then it presents a unified foundation of AI-driven big data analytics
intelligence. The approach proposed in this paper might facilitate research and
development of business intelligence, big data analytics intelligence, big data analytics,
AI and data science.

If you have interest to develop this paper in depth, please do not hesitate to contact me at

[email protected]

Let’s collaborate to make it publish in a prestigious journal.

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