FEATURE : ANALYTICS
this as an opportunity . By empowering employees with data , they can act more independently , assume more responsibility , hierarchies become flatter , and decisions are made more democratically ,” he said . “ In the long term , the entire company benefits from this , because traditional company processes are put to the test and often innovated .”
Stephen Gill , Academic Head , School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences , Heriot-Watt University Dubai
Business analytics pitfalls
According to Qureshi , one of the common CIO pitfalls is to keep acquiring more technology and not have the right understanding of how to structure the architecture and the business rules from the start . “ The technology is only as good as the business logic that is provided to it . You cannot expect the data to be accurate if you have the wrong business logic setup from the start . There needs to be a strong sense of business understanding among the technical data team . Hire someone who is well aware of both the technical and business side ,” he advised .
Skills challenge
While a data-driven approach to business can provide incredible business opportunities , many companies still struggle with the lack of staff skilled in analytics . Gill said one-way CIOs can help address the skills challenge is by taking the existing staff and training them in new methods , new processes and new skills . “ The other way is by acquiring new people who have the right skills to support the analytics transformation of a company ,” he added . “ Degree programmes such as Heriot-Watt ’ s MSc Data Science help you learn how to model , store and process data sets using the latest algorithms and techniques , and help you acquire the skills applicable to business applications , industrial applications and also scientific data exploration .”
Qureshi explained that data is a field that is growing really fast and it is a constant challenge to hire the right skillset with the right experience for your business . “ There is a lot of input of new resources entering this field and even veterans of this industry are reskilling themselves on the newer cloud technologies . AWS Data Architecture certifications are becoming the go-to certifications in this field which equip people on how to use the latest and greatest cloud data functionalities offered by Amazon ’ s AWS ,” he said .
Looking ahead , industry specialists point out that when choosing a business analytics tool , organisations should consider the sources they will be drawing data from , the nature of the data they will be analysing and usability . A good business analytics tool will be easy enough for the common business user , but also enables more advanced users to take advantage of its features . p
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