Data Visualization—A Growing Business TrendKshitij AshtekarBig Data and Analytics Lead, IndiaAccenture

One of the most fascinating disciplines big data and analytics have brought to the forefront is data visualization. It draws on the powerful role our brain and eyes play in helping us perceive the world around us and quickly processing sensory information. In the digital era we live in today, data visualization is about using the graphical representation of data to interpret and express relationships among elements of information in a clear, concise, interactive and engaging manner. Recognizing the immediate impact of visual data on the human mind, businesses are gearing up to master this medium across industries for e�ective analysis and informed decision making.This paper focuses on the key reasons why businesses are keen on making data visualization an integral part of their overall

data strategy in the coming

years.

Converting numbers into compelling interactive storiesA range of snow-capped mountain peaks and valleys helps business analysts obtain a quick snapshot of the rise and fall of the stock exchange around the world in the twentieth century. The size of the school of dolphins in all the ocean waters helps marine biologists get a sense of where the population is shrinking or growing. Varying size of farmlands present a visual breakdown of government earnings and expenditure which tells the people of a country exactly where their tax money is going. For the first time, the public transport authorities discover pockets of information in their database on how citizens use the city’s rail and bus system, and as a result, are able to optimize the transport routes.

These are just some possibilities that data visualization brings to life in an aesthetic, narrative, interactive and e�ective manner which motivates the intended audience to take action. Its power lies in translating a huge volume of numbers and correlations that only highly specialized professional can translate into visual stories, messages and analysis that most senior executives seem to want in today’s fast-paced business environment.

Tapping into innovative talent and solutionsAlmost all data visualization practioners—data artists, code artists, data scientists, to mention a few—strive to achieve a fine balance between staying honest

to the data and presenting it in visually appealing ways to tell a story. This is not easy, given the complexity involved in not just capturing, processing and analyzing raw data but also in selecting and mastering the most appropriate data visualization technologies and techniques.

Recently, some organizations held a “challenge contest” whereby they invited data visualization practioners to communicate the solutions to key industry challenges in a clear, concise and e�ective manner. For instance, the data visual experts who participated at the Economist-Neilsen Challenge examined Nielsen’s consumer data, generated insights and presented their findings using data visualization technologies.[1] Similarly, the city governments of San Francisco, Geneva and Zurich held the Urban Data Challenge which brought together many creative professionals from the software development community. They merged and compared mobility data sets from three cities and projected their findings through a visual narration.[2] In another instance, the United States Department of Transportation challenged data visualization students to examine huge volumes of transportation as well as census data from across the county and present visually appealing options to help the Department make better informed policy and investment decisions.[3]

Key to e�ective data visualizationMost visualization exercises are aimed at making sense of data and communicating the findings

[1] The Economist, "The Economist-Nielsen Data Visualization Challenge," Dec 12, 2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koW0Fhy1WJE&list=PLBD2DEAE34013994E&index=1, accessed September 20, 2013.

[2] Urban Prototyping™, "Urban Data Challenge: Zürich | San Francisco | Geneva," http://urbanprototyping.org/prototype/challenges/urban-data-challenge-zurich-sf-geneva/#events-and-videos, accessed September 27, 2013.

[3] ChallengePost Inc., "Data Visualization Student Challenge," http://dataviz.challengepost.com/, accessed September 27, 2013.

[4] Krista Schnell and Nathan Shetterley, "Understanding Data Visualization," 2013, http://www.accenture.com/us-en/Pages/insight-understanding-data-visualization.aspx, accessed September 27, 2013.

[5] For a full discussion on the significance of people, process and technologies required to make data visualization initiatives successful, see Krista Schnell and Nathan Shetterley, Ibid.

in a digestible format within a specific context (a problem statement, for example). An end-to-end data visualization initiative calls for the three aspects to be in sync:

• Right Talent: Computer scientists, statisticians, data mining experts, graphic designers, and human computer interaction professionals need to work as a team.

• Appropriate Visualization Processes: After the data is captured, it needs to be processed before it can tell a story. That is, the data needs to be:

• Parsed—structure, categorize and organize data.

• Filtered—sort to keep the relevant data.

• Mined—discover patterns through statistical analysis.

• Represented—create a visual model of data, an interactive infographics for example.

• Refined—make the visual data model highly relevant to the target audience.

• Interactive—deploy the visual model with appropriate user tools.

These are the basic stages data goes through, though not in a linear but rather an iterative manner.[4]

• Fine Balance: To bringing data to life and make it highly relevant to the target audience, system professionals need to be highly skilled in business intelligence (BI), big data, analytics and visualization tools and in interpreting the results

from a business perspective.[5] This requires going beyond technology considerations and presenting data in an intuitive and aesthetic manner, while maintaining the integrity of data (that is, keeping data honest).

At AccentureGiven its significance to our clients across industries, data visualization is an integral part of data discovery, big data and analytics. We o�er training programs on data visualization literacy and advanced data visualization delivery methodologies, techniques and estimation approaches. Since visualization is typically coupled with big data and analytics we o�er special trainings in Hadoop and R to our professionals, in addition to running the Next Generation Data Architecture program which includes a certification program for data analysts. In the coming years, Accenture will use data visualization increasingly to help clients discover the hidden gems in their data and use it to drive business decisions.

Data analysis will never be the sameAs with many emerging technology trends, data visualization is not only radically changing the way we think about data and how we use it but also opening up new opportunities. By discovering new pockets of meaningful data in the enterprise system and shedding light on its

significance to business objectives, data visualization will increasingly become an integral part of a company’s business decision making strategy. And, as this wave picks up, it will become necessary for technical and business professionals to speak the language of data visualization.

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