| |9 December 2019HIGHERReviewData analysts should become aware of their innate skills and strengths early-on in their careers, which would help them project their talent best and seek the best placement in the industrythrough the rigors of statistics that they have followed in checking their various hypotheses. The very skillset that they prided themselves for, was the basis of their unhappi-ness and consequent demotivation! Most of their stakehold-ers were Marketing and Sales Managers, Customer Account Managers, Program Managers, Digital Officers, there were hardly any statisticians on the customer team. The pains in their work went totally unappreciated by their clients and worse still, they were alleged of missing expected standards as the clients did not get their expected crisp insights.This is often the case with any niche skills like data analysis, where people get engrossed in multiple webs of data extraction, analyses and interpretation, without be-ing mindful of their target consumers for the insights. The data analytics skillset needs to be complemented by the 2Cs ­ Customer Understanding and Compelling Content Creation. The first recipe for success lies in Understanding the Consumer...who is he/she? What are their profession-al backdrops? What insights would excite them about the data? How are they likely to use these insights? What are the words and topics that resonate best with them? And the next piece of success lies in Creating Compel-ling Content. This means presenting crisp insights, with the right graphics that are easy to understand and retain. The insight is to be made as much tangible and a story had to be weaved around it to give it a visual appeal. The 2Cs are often not emphasized enough in the Busi-ness Analytics courses. The only recent development is the emergence of courses like Storytelling with Data, but the domain knowledge is still something that needs to be em-phasized as On-the-Job learning.Furthermore, given the spate of information spun out through increased connectivity and all-pervasive IoT along-side data privacy debates, it is also time that we think about the competencies and specializations that we need as we pursue a career ahead in business analytics. Given the pres-ent complexities, the competency areas could be:1. Data Wrangling ­ This requires cleaning the data and transforming datasets to improve data quality and usability.2. Exploratory Data Analysis ­ This involves sys-tematic iterative investigation of structure and relationships in datasets; essentially domain knowledge expertise should be built into this segment. If required, intercultural orienta-tion is must-know expertise. In the example cited, mobile usage data in European countries have different patterns from Indian context, given the different cultural norms of relaxing and living lives.3. Visualization and Reporting ­ This refers to de-signing graphics and reports that communicate the key in-sights drawn from data; aesthetics and creativity are good skills to have for this role.4. Machine Learning and Predictive Modeling ­ Given the present market, this segment would require a strong knowledge of algorithms and mathematical model-ing, rather than just data analyticsData analysts should become aware of their innate skills and strengths early-on in their careers, which would help them project their talent best and seek the best place-ment in the industry. For instance, the team whose story I had shared at the beginning, were expected to specialize in Visualization and Reporting. They were stuck at the level of data wrangling and exploratory data analysis, without having much domain intelligence. And to motivate them, their Ivy League certifications had been completed in Pre-dictive Modeling!We definitely want talented data analysts to be engaged and happy in their roles and jobs. And hence, this appeal to all educationists in this field to ensure that we help our budding talent to think through their Digital-Data-Busi-ness appetites prior to signing up for their courses. Also, we must guide them with the rigor of 2Cs to perform best in their jobs.
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