What Is Data Analysis and How Can You Get Started?

When you’re ready to get started with data analysis, you’ll find that there are a couple of options: build your tools from scratch or use a SaaS (software as a service) solution. It’s the eternal build vs. buy debate.

There are many open-source libraries that developers can use to build machine learning models for data analysis. While they’re free, they’ll take time to implement and require complex and costly infrastructure, not to mention large upfront investments. You’ll probably end up hiring a team of developers and data scientists if you decide to build your own solution.

SaaS tools, on the other hand, are a simple and cost-effective alternative. These tools are cloud-based and ready-to-use, allowing you to perform a variety of tasks, from text analysis to data visualization, in next to no time.

Some of the benefits of buying SaaS tools over building your text analysis software include:

• Lower costs & easily scalable. While open-source software is free, you’ll need a team of machine learning experts to set up the infrastructure, build complex algorithms, and test your tools. SaaS tools, on the other hand, are ready to use solutions and no-code, low-code options make it easy for non-technical users to get started with data analysis tools. That means you don’t need to hire expert staff, and you won’t waste time waiting for a solution to be built. You can easily scale up or down with SaaS tools, which offer various plans depending on the amount of data you need to analyze.

• Quick to set up. In such a competitive market, businesses need to move fast to stay relevant. With SaaS tools, you don’t have to spend months developing and fine-tuning your machine learning models. Instead, it takes less than a month to implement out-of-the-box data analysis solutions, so you can start gaining insights and creating better customer experiences right away.

• Maintenance costs included. When you build your own data analysis software, you need to take into account maintenance costs. You’ll need to keep a permanent team of experts on to tweak hyperparameters, update models, and maintain on-site infrastructure. If you choose to buy cloud-based data analysis software, you won’t have to worry about additional high maintenance costs. They’re included in the monthly license fee. And, since SaaS data analysis tools are in the cloud, there’s no physical software to maintain or repair.