Solving the Data Analytics Skills Gap

Data analytics is doing absolutely amazing things for companies… Recently, Vodafone worked with a venture-backed company Celonis to improve efficiency. The results have been nothing short of staggering. Process costs per purchase order were cut by 11% and time to market by 20% – all in less than six months. Solutions like this are touted as MRI for your business in a Forbes article from Gil Press. See graphic below.

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Data mining, big data and analytics have the potential to transform businesses and many companies are investing now to accrue the benefits before the competition.

You literally can’t look at the tech news of the day without seeing a wealth of analytics stories. For example, an IoT Evolution piece from Cynthia Artin discusses how Amazon AWS Greengrass is allowing for improved analytics – including examples from Lenovo.

Larry Dignan at ZDNet further discusses Salesforce Einstein Analytics contextual suite of self-service apps throughout its platform. See graphic below.
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The increased focus on analytics hasn’t been missed by the media. In fact, in March 2017, Dun & Bradstreet and Forbes Insights explored the current state of analytics adoption across the enterprise via a survey of more than 300 executives in North America, the U.K. and Ireland across a range of industries. 

Some of the findings are fascinating (emphasis added by us):

• Senior executives finally understand the value of analytics and are making investments in technology, people and processes.

• Data analytics skills gaps persist across the enterprise, as 27% of analytics professionals surveyed cite this skills gap as a major impediment in their data initiatives.

• Data analytics has moved from IT and finance to the majority of business functions.

Analytical methods and tools trail both the appetite and ambition of most business leaders: 23% of analytics professionals are still using spreadsheets as their primary tool for data analysis.

• There is a dire need for better data analytics best practices, with 19% using only basic data models and regressions.

People capital is a major factor for data analytics success.

• While data analytics has gone mainstream, the C-suite and senior leadership need to do more to drive the cultural change needed for better utilization of analytics, as 38% of those surveyed say their companies need to do more.

• To move to a data-driven enterprise, business leaders need to do more with all the data their teams are consuming and analyzing. Only 38% of respondents strongly felt that business leaders took full advantage of their analytics initiatives.

In short, there is a skills gap and an opportunity gap with a small but growing number of companies beginning to take advantage of data analytics to save money and find new customers.

The opportunity is not going to go away – companies need to be on the leading edge of this curve to stay competitive.

One way to be on the forefront is to attend the IoT Evolution, Business Intelligence and Analytics track where you will hear from companies like Tellient, Uptake, GLOBECOMM, IBM, Cradlepoint and many more. Register now – the event takes place July 17-20 in Las Vegas.

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