All the data in the world can’t help you improve your business results unless you can sift through it and see it in a way that tells a story – a story that leads you to a conclusion, helps you solve a problem or allows you to see how your business can grow, change and succeed. Columnar reports and a sea of data are a barrier to insight. But, that doesn’t have to be YOUR problem.
As a Citizen Data Scientist, your journey may have been rocky. If your business did not plan for the cultural shift, the new workflow and processes, or provide support to help you scale up with intuitive, sophisticated augmented analytics, you probably struggled to find your footing. Perhaps you have yet to find that footing and are still looking for support. No matter where you are on the journey, one thing is for sure, if you don’t have the right tools and techniques to accurately and effectively use data, your Citizen Data Scientist role will not be fulfilled.
If your business is trying to achieve Digital Transformation, you know how challenging the initiative can be. Digital Transformation (aka Dx) is focused on improving the business by capitalizing on technology and software solutions to increase effectiveness, productivity, collaboration and time to market. If planned and executed properly, it helps the business to achieve agility, improve customer satisfaction and increase scalability as the business changes and grows.
The Shopify management team has spent a lot of time and effort building its brand and its popularity around the world. Shopify has many features that appeal to eCommerce and online business owners. In today’s competitive online shopping environment, these features, combined with the ability to easily analyze the data within the Shopify application and use that analysis to make business decisions can mean the difference between business success and failure.
These days, it seems that every conference I attend, there is a discussion about Citizen Data Scientists. For some of my colleagues, the discussion seems irrelevant or, in some cases, daunting. If you are hesitant to embrace this type of initiative in your business, here are a few Gartner predictions that might convince you to at least consider this crucial shift in business culture and data literacy.
The use of business intelligence and business analytics is growing in every industry, business function and in companies of every size. 48% of small and medium sized business CIOs responding to a Gartner survey revealed that business intelligence (BI), data and analytics is one of the technology areas that will have the largest amount of new or additional spending.
Why does an eCommerce or online shopping business need analytics? After all, eCommerce is exploding. There is no limit to what a business can do! Some of what you just read is true. Some of it isn’t! If you are thinking you don’t need analytics because eCommerce is guaranteed to succeed, you need to recalibrate your strategy.
If your business is trying to incorporate data analytics into the fabric of day-to-day work, you will need to get your users to adopt analytical tools. The way forward is not all that complicated. The solution you choose must take an augmented analytics approach, one that includes simple search analytics, ala Google search. Natural Language Processing (NLP) and NLP Search tools are key to this approach as they allow business users to ask simple questions and get answers. If a user does not have to create complex queries or look to business analysts or data scientists or IT professionals, that user can incorporate data into information sharing, reporting, presentations and recommendations to management.
When you take on the mantle of Citizen Data Scientist, there is a lot to process! Much of the reason business users feel overwhelmed at the idea of the Citizen Data Scientist role is the anticipation of having to learn new tools and techniques to analyze data.
Everyone over the age of five knows about social networks and social media. No matter which platform you prefer and how you choose to share your thoughts and ideas, you are no doubt engaged in the networking world. When it comes to business intelligence and analytics, there is no reason you can’t employ the same techniques to share, collaborate, create and innovate.
