Descriptive analytics: This describes what has happened over a given period of time. Have the number of views gone up? Are sales stronger this month than last?
Diagnostic analytics: This
focuses more on why something happened. It involves more diverse data inputs
and a bit of hypothesizing. Did the weather affect beer sales? Did that latest
marketing campaign impact sales?
Predictive analytics: This
moves to what is likely going to happen in the near term. What happened to
sales the last time we had a hot summer? How many weather models predict a hot
summer this year?
Prescriptive analytics: This suggests a course of action. For example, we should add an evening shift to the brewery and rent an additional tank to increase output if the likelihood of a hot summer is measured as an average of these five weather models and the average is above 58%,