A few years ago the Harvard Business Review called data scientist the sexiest job of the 21st Century. Demand continues to outpace the supply of data scientists, so positions command a healthy wage.
This cost and the perceived complexity of data science may keep some organizations from using business intelligence and analytics to draw insight from the data their operations generate. The big data hype may reinforce the feeling that data scientists are necessary.
But do you even need a data scientists? For most businesses, the answer is no.
Data scientist Yanir Seroussi’s post on KDNuggets.com gives five questions to ask before hiring someone like him.
- Do you know what data scientists do?
- Do you have enough data available?
- Do you have a specific problem to solve?
- Can you get away with heuristics, intuition, and/or manual processes?
- Are you committed to being data-driven?
If you are building a BI and analytics solution, a data scientist may not be necessary. As Seroussi put it, “Not having a data scientist in the early stages doesn’t mean the data is being ignored – it just means that it doesn’t require the attention of a full-time data scientist.”
Most businesses have access to at least a basic reporting tool whether they use it or not. It probably fails to fill the needs of the company. Creating reports to answer questions that will drive the business won’t require a data scientist. Users familiar with the business and the industry can frame the questions to create these reports. And they can use dashboards and visualizations to deliver the data insight needed so they can perform this analysis.
Patrick Nord foresees an era of democratized data and insights in a model where any employee from frontline employees to C-level executives can ask questions and get answers. In his post on ArchtypeSC, he said every member of the organizations “will have access to tools to find better ways of doing business through their data.”
ISVs put self-service business intelligence and analytics solutions in the hands of their customers’ end users to accomplish this. These BI solutions increasingly offer ease of use so the non-technical user can dive into meaningful data to drive insights.
Nord is right when he says innovation and insight can come from anywhere in a company. But those tools must be available for everyone.
Business users are savvy about the company and the industry. Learning enough about data analysis takes much less time than it does to train a data scientist about the business. A few online courses can turn eager employees into powerful data analysts.
Make Data-Driven Business Decisions, created by Wharton Online and offered through Coursera.
But most of the time you don’t need employees to get certifications as data or business analysts to gain insight about the company’s numbers. Mostly you just need them to ask questions. A self-service BI and analytics solution allows them to do this. They need to know where to find the data. While knowing how to make database queries isn’t always necessary with these tools, it can certainly help in understanding how to frame their questions. Knowing what a table join means and why you’d want to make one can help turn an employee into a power user.
More Resources
Christian Bonilla explains why you don’t need to be a data scientist to be data savvy, and also helps you learn the tools of the trade for asking questions.
Bernard Marr wrote an excellent article, “Forget Data Scientists – Make Everyone Data Savvy” that expands on this blog’s premise.
Izenda Helps Businesses Become Data Savvy
Izenda’s embedded, self-service business intelligence and analytics solution enables ISVs to deliver an ad hoc reporting solution to their customers.
Follow Izenda on social media for the latest on technology and business intelligence:
