Companies today rely on data and analytics for driving personalization and to acquire and retain customers. The multifaceted technology can also tackle the growing problem of NPAs in the BFSI sector. Prahalad Thota, Head-Analytics and Data Science, Wells Fargo, in a conversation with ETCIO, highlights how analytics has come to be the business backbone. Edited excerpt: Are there any insights that you are deriving from data to guide consumer strategies or to get about with the regulatory environment? From a consumer strategy, personalization is a great example.

While Microsoft continues to be buoyed by enterprise and cloud services like Azure, chief executive Satya Nadella tried to reassure analysts that Microsoft still has a consumer strategy: Xbox, PC gaming, and devices powered by digital assistants like Cortana. With the demise of consumer products like the Zune music player, Groove Music Pass, and Windows phones, some customers have wondered whether Microsoft indeed has a consumer strategy in mind. "When I come home at night, I'm talking to Alexa... not Cortana," one analyst said during a Microsoft investor call on Thursday. "Our real strategy going forward is not only to do great work on the console but also complement that with the work we're doing on the PC," Nadella replied. PC gaming is a growth market, Nadella said, and Microsoft's goal is to bring those platforms together: via its Game Pass subscription service (an Xbox-only offering for now); its Mixer streaming service, where gamers can stream themselves as they play either PC or Xbox games; and mobile gaming, where Nadella highlighted the fact that Minecraft has been ported to pretty much everything.