Professional services firm Deloitte today announced an expansion of its Data Analytics group through a merger with the highly regarded boutique firm Analytic Insight.

The team of eight, comprising senior analytic consultants in Sydney and Melbourne, will join an existing national practice of 70 at Deloitte.

Deloitte CEO Giam Swiegers said data analytics was considered by today’s leading organisations as the ‘last frontier’ in managing information overload and achieving strategic growth.

“The use of data analytics or predictive analytics allows organisations to efficiently extract, clean and standardise data from multiple operational and legacy systems, as well as data in the public domain, to deliver real insights to business stakeholders,” he said.

“The majority of organisations in Australia have the data available, to answer some of their most difficult and long held challenges, yet there are a number of impediments that are preventing them from realising these rewards,” Mr Swiegers said.

“The merger announced today increases Deloitte’s capacities to assist organisations navigate data identification and acquisition, through to implementation of operational and market facing solutions.

“The Analytic Insight team will complement Deloitte’s existing practice with their specialist knowledge in marketing, credit risk and information systems, and extensive experience in the telecommunications, finance, banking and retail industries.

“Deloitte intends to continue to seek further niche opportunities to enhance our existing service offering strengths through strategic alliances,” Mr Swiegers said.

Partner Anthony Viel, head of the Deloitte Data Analytics Group, said with organisations collecting petabytes of data, meeting the consumer demand for organisations to become more electronic and convenient, plus the competitive influx of the global economy over the coming years, organisations increasingly require effective and efficient data management, modelling and insight solutions.

“Our Data Analytics team assists organisations to fully leverage the huge investment today in enterprise technology and information systems.

“Our increasingly sophisticated methodologies can be applied across all industries and issues, whether that be financial crime detection, customer behaviour or supply chain logistics.”

Customer behaviour, logistics and talent management expertise

Analytic Insight founder and managing director Dale de Luca said the two-year-old boutique firm, decided to join forces with Deloitte to access the global resources to extend their client service offering.

“Analytic Insight has a highly regarded track record in providing customer behaviour modelling services, credit risk profiling, strategic marketing experience and logistics,” he said.

“One of the key reasons for joining Deloitte’s Data Analytics team is their similar cultural and strategic vision to stay at the forefront of the analytics world, as the new strategic opportunities presented working with some of Australia’s biggest companies.

“The Deloitte data analytics team is one of its fasting growing groups in the Australian practice and this merger will provide a solid platform, as one of the largest data analytic groups in Asia Pacific, to deliver premium data analytic and consulting services,” Mr De Luca said.