Definition
Descriptive Analytics is a type of data analysis focused on presenting and understanding what happened in the past.
Human Explanation
It answers the question: What happened?
Why it Matters
It provides the foundation for further analysis and enables organisations to monitor operational performance.
Conceptual Boundary
Descriptive Analytics does not explain why events occurred and does not predict the future.
Practical Perspective
It commonly uses reports, dashboards and KPI summaries to make past and current results visible.
Analytical Progression
- Descriptive: What happened?
- Diagnostic: Why did it happen?
- Predictive: What is likely to happen?
- Prescriptive: What should we do?
These perspectives complement one another. More advanced analysis does not remove the need for a reliable description of events.