Learn how to integrate your data analytics practice into your organization
Businesses can no longer afford to overlook the application of data analytics in their operations. You’re using your data when you check out annual trends to anticipate staffing or examine sales to assist in establishing market requirements and needs. Simply put, data analytics is the process of analyzing and interpreting data in order to obtain new insights and improve decision-making.
Big data might be complicated and challenging to comprehend. However, firms that develop systems and methods to gather, analyze, and then utilize data will see tangible results in a variety of areas. Taking a consultancy approach to data science integration is one method to get the most out of it. Continue reading to learn more about the consultancy approach to incorporate a data science team into your organization.
Data Science: An Overview
Data science is a branch of statistics and applied mathematics that uses massive amounts of complex data — sometimes known as big data — to generate meaningful information. Also known as data-driven science, data science integrates elements of several disciplines with the use of calculations to evaluate large amounts of data for decision-making.
The Importance of Data Science
In business, knowledge is power, and data is the source of that power. According to Statista, data volume is expected to exceed 180 zettabytes by 2025. It’s tremendously valuable to be able to use data science to unleash the potential of this information.
Investing in data science consulting companies or technologies can help your company in five ways:
1. You Can Make Better Decisions With Quantitative Evidence
Decision-makers from every company need data at their fingertips. This can be challenging at times because unstructured data accounts for nearly 80% of all data, demanding the use of predictive analytic tools to get insights from it. Your company may create forecasting models to mimic a range of scenarios by using data science to gather figures and statistics.
Companies can learn which solutions to use for the best possible results and be given reasonable, best-case scenario measures to follow to maximize performance. Furthermore, by tracking and evaluating performance metrics over time, your firm gets more intelligent and effective at making decisions based on repeating patterns.
2. Increasing Your Product’s Relevance
Data science approaches look at historical data, compare it to the competitors, evaluate the market, and create predictions about where and when your service or product will sell best. This can assist a firm in comprehending how their product benefits others and, if necessary, challenging conventional business methods.
Data science offers a thorough grasp of the market’s attitude to your company’s products and services through ongoing study and evaluation. You can reconsider your strategy to ensure you’re providing the solutions your clients require by taking a close look at the most frequent way your product is used.
3. Finding the Ideal People to Work for You
Recruitment is a time-consuming process, but it can be made faster and more precise using data science. Businesses can leverage social media, institutional databases, and job portals to sift through all the data about the talent pool and apply analytical approaches to locate the applicants who best match the firm.
Finding people that will genuinely match your company culture — rather than just seem reasonable on paper — requires analyzing this existing data about your candidates. This is particularly critical if you have a high volume of candidates and need to fill a position quickly. Using data science methodologies, you can guarantee that you’re still hiring the best person for the job.
4. Staff Training
Keeping everybody updated and informed of new developments regularly, even with the best team, can be a challenging undertaking. Data science can help your employees learn what they need to know. The information and insights gathered can then be used to develop an IT documentation software or an online knowledge base that contains essential information for staff to refer to.
By gathering empirical data and giving employees facts and figures that they can consult at any moment, you’re building an innovative, knowledgeable team that will be able to leverage these insights to increase profitability.
5. Identifying Your Target Market
We generate nearly 2.5 billion gigabytes of data daily, according to estimates. With the ever-increasing amount of data available, determining what is most relevant to your business and customers can be demanding. Whether it’s from social media engagement, web behavior, or online surveys, each bit of data your business gathers from customers has information that you can examine to help you better understand your target market.
You can merge pieces of data to develop insight to target your market more effectively by combining data science and the knowledge your customers offer. As a result, you can customize products and services to specific demographics. For instance, discovering correlations between income level and age can assist your organization in developing new discounts or promotions for groups that were previously unavailable.
Integrating Data Science into Your Business Through Consultancy
Without the understanding of people who can translate state-of-the-art technology into meaningful information, big data is useless. As a growing number of businesses embrace big data and leverage its power, the value of a data scientist who can derive significant findings from terabytes of data is becoming increasingly important.
During the previous five years, the popularity of data science has increased fivefold. The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts that the number of jobs in the data science profession will expand by around 28% by 2026. To put that 28% into perspective, that translates to about 11.5 million new jobs in the industry. However, data science talent is in short supply; as a result, companies that lack data science expertise may have to resort to data science consulting companies.
While both data science and conventional consulting involve making data-driven decisions, the key distinction is that data science consultants provide their customers with reusable methods.
Businesses benefit from four services provided by data science consulting companies. These include:
Strategy
The strategy component of consulting examines what can be done with data and seeks to come up with a plan. This area demands an in-depth understanding of use cases. The data gathering process, regulation, and goals might all be very varied depending on the company’s industry.
For example, one goal could be to reduce a plant’s power consumption, which could be accomplished by gathering data from industrial equipment and obtaining the relevant documents from the business owner. In contrast, for an FMCG company trying to develop insights from data to increase sales, data gathering could be restricted by red tape, personal data protection, and consumer protection requirements.
Collaboration between departments is essential to succeed. Both the business and IT sides of the organization must be present during the identification and potential solution of the problem. The foundation of data science demands a more multidisciplinary and cross-departmental approach.
Validation
The validation stage is required to ensure that the identified approach is correct. While developing a strategy can be done in a matter of hours in an emergency, putting it into action can take several months. As a result, validating the plan is crucial.
Validation is a necessary component of the strategy’s finalization. However, if the strategy’s validity is assessed by the same persons that provide the consultation, there’s a chance you’ll end up with a conflict of interest.
For many consulting projects, the strategy is built and validated by the same team to save time. Creating a separate group for validation would entail them starting the analysis from the beginning, which would result in substantial inefficiencies. It’s easier to detect and spot faults in a strategy when they’re separated from their validation, and it’s also clearer how the validation stage improves the system.
Development
Development is the process of designing and developing a cutting-edge data source or internal application. This is more along the lines of data science consulting’s IT side. Bespoke solutions for unique circumstances demand a strong focus on the development phase.
Training
Training is increasing the company’s data literacy. This would ensure that the entire team can understand the process and is involved in improving performance. This would also make sure that the organization would grasp the key points and contribute meaningfully to the process’s continual improvement. If the employees can supply real-time information about the performance of the data system, feedback methods can work well.
The Bottomline
Data science techniques can benefit your business in many different ways, including decision-making, hiring, training, and marketing. Data analysis can assist you in making well-informed judgments that will help your company expand sensibly and strategically. Investing the time to learn about data science and uncover the facts behind its effectiveness is a technique that every company should consider.
In this article, we’ve covered different ways on how a consulting approach to integrating data science into your company can benefit your business. If you want to learn more about data science, give us a call at Near Contact today! At Near Contact, we use cutting-edge IT services and technologies to tackle challenging business problems. Regardless of the problem, we are creating value when completing IT projects.
For more information on how Near Contact can help you access the pool of IT skills you need, email us at info@nearcontact.com
About Near Contact
Specializing in digital transformation, software development, and mobile apps, Near Contact attracts and retains the top talent from across Mexico to support US enterprises and service providers. With over 20 years’ experience matching the right talent for each client and project, Near Contact’s flexible, hybrid outsourcing model offers fast access to a highly-skilled, scalable resource pool—delivering your project, your way. www.nearcontact.com
