Analytics often involves studying past historical data to research potential trends, to analyze the effects of certain decisions or events, or to evaluate the performance of a given tool or scenario. The goal of analytics is to improve the business by gaining knowledge which can be used to make improvements or changes.
In todays business world the companies that are getting ahead are using lots of analytics to make the right decisions. You have to understand your customers by bringing all of your data together so everyone in your large organization can explore, gain intelligence and inform strategies to increase business performance.

On a general note, data analytics initiatives can help businesses increase revenues, improve operational efficiency, optimize marketing campaigns and customer service efforts, respond more quickly to emerging market trends and gain a competitive edge over rivals, all with the ultimate goal of boosting business performance.

It can be separated into quantitative data analysis and qualitative data analysis. Quantitative involves analysis of numerical data with quantifiable variables that can be compared or measured statistically. while qualitative approach is more interpretive, focusing on understanding the content of non-numerical data like text, images, audio and video, including common phrases, themes and points of view.

There are lots of Amazon web services that are helpful in this regard such as Amazon Athena. it is an interactive query service that makes it easy to analyze data  using standard SQL. It is server-less, so there is no infrastructure to manage, and you pay only for the queries that you run.