When an eCommerce or online business undertakes a review of product or service offerings, pricing, marketing campaigns and channels, sales results and planning for the future, it is often hard to gather all the data and details and see the way forward clearly.
As a newly minted Citizen Data Scientist, you may feel overwhelmed and uncertain how to proceed. As with any other transition and new responsibility, the first order of business is to understand what is expected of you and what the boundaries and obligations of your new responsibilities will dictate. It is also important to learn how to use any new tools that may be important to your new role.
If you are a business owner with an eCommerce or online shopping site, you probably spend a lot of time trying to understand your business results. There are numerous surveys that address the market and the activity in online shopping. Regardless of which survey you read, you are probably surprised to know that more than 2 billion people shop online. But, those numbers don’t tell the whole story. It is also important to understand that people will often check prices online while they are standing in a retail store just to see if they can find something at a better price. So, they don’t always buy your services or products just because they visit your site. And, you are probably not surprised to know that your competition is growing every day. You know that better than anyone.
When a business user takes on the new role of Citizen Data Scientist, it is often with misgivings and concerns. If their business and management team have not adequately explained the expectations of this new role, or made the workflow and cultural changes required to ensure that this new role is successful, the business user and team member is likely to fail, and the Citizen Data Scientist initiative is likely to fail.
When you launch an analytics solution within your enterprise, you are probably concerned about getting your business users to adopt that solution. If you can’t engage the business user and achieve user adoption, your return on investment (ROI) will be poor! But, it is important to understand that the right augmented analytics solution can provide the structure and foundation for business users without requiring them to have a sophisticated knowledge of algorithms and analytical techniques.
Gartner has rightfully predicted the rise of Citizen Data Scientists. Coming from the ranks of business users, Citizen Data Scientists continue to function in their primary roles and fulfill their responsibilities as they take on the tasks of aligning with Digital Transformation initiatives and improving data literacy. Their new role does require that they embrace some new concepts and become comfortable with analytics and with making decisions using augmented analytical tools.
eCommerce and online shopping businesses employ professionals in many roles including sales managers, marketing professionals, social media experts, product and service professionals and others. Together, every role in a business is designed to create a team that will ensure business success and, with eCommerce exploding, it is easy to think that the right people can get the job done.
If your business wishes to enable Digital Transformation, it must create a roadmap to achieve results using new or modified technologies, streamlined workflow and processes that will leverage these technologies to enhance information sharing and ensure a consistent, uniform approach to business objectives and goals. It must also encourage and advance Data Literacy within the ranks of its teams. Why is data literacy important?
Sometimes it is difficult to imagine how a new process, technique or software solution might help your business. You see the demos, you read the marketing messages and you wonder if there is true value in adopting these new ideas and concepts.
