Citizen Data Scientists Are Important to Business Transformation

Transform Your Business with Citizen Data Scientists

The business environment today is competitive. Whether your business is global or local, you are challenged to do more with less, to set and achieve goals more quickly and to stay ahead of your competitors by gaining a comprehensive understanding of what your customers want, what they WILL want, and how to best attract their attention and retain them.

To meet these challenges, every team member and employee must have a thorough understanding of how their roles and responsibilities fit into the grand scheme of things and how the projects, tasks and activities they pursue on a day-to-day basis will affect revenue, outcomes and results.

When a business (large or small) makes the decision to transition business users to Citizen Data Scientists, it supports the alignment of goals and objectives with fact-based decision-making and improved data literacy, encouraging its users to embrace and understand data and use that data to collaborate, present information to management and gain insight into results to identify opportunities and address issues.

‘The Citizen Data Scientist approach transforms the organization by improving time to market, reducing rework and mitigating market missteps and improving productivity and the alignment of workflow and tasks with the goals and objectives of the enterprise.’

World renowned technology research firm Gartner first coined the term ‘Citizen Data Scientist’ in 2016 and defined the role as ‘a person who creates or generates models that leverage predictive or prescriptive analytics, but whose primary job function is outside of the field of statistics and analytics.’

Nearly a decade later, the role has been refined and structured within many organizations and recent Gartner research reports that, ‘Citizen Data Scientists can be leveraged to perform repetitive and redundant tasks in the analytics workflow, and therefore create value to the organization, while allowing expert data scientists to focus on more complex tasks.’

The increased pace and tenor of competition has forced businesses to accommodate rapid change in markets and customer buying behavior by using analytics, data scientists and business analysts to work with IT and create reports and presentations to be used for decisions. But there just aren’t enough professional resources of funds to support this approach. Hence, the evolution of Citizen Data Scientists.

Transform Business Users Into Citizen Data Scientists AND Transform Your Business

The evolution of self-serve augmented analytics tools and technologies like natural language processing (NLP) and NLP search, machine learning, flexible data visualization, and artificial intelligence (AI) provide support for business users without technical skills to gather and analyze data and produce reports, collaborate with other users and make recommendations using insight derived from advanced analytics. And this approach supports data democratization and data literacy.

The Citizen Data Scientist approach also transforms the organization by allowing business users to interact with and collaborate with IT and data scientists to take day-to-day data analytics and translate them into strategic initiatives with measurable results, accurate predictions and rapid flexible processes.

The Citizen Data Scientist approach transforms the organization by improving time to market, reducing rework and mitigating market missteps and improving productivity and the alignment of workflow and tasks with the goals and objectives of the enterprise. It provides a career path for business users and advances their knowledge and skills, allowing them to understand how their role directly influences results and to create and innovate.

‘When a business (large or small) makes the decision to transition business users to Citizen Data Scientists, it supports the alignment of goals and objectives with fact-based decision-making and improved data literacy, encouraging its users to embrace and understand data.’

To plan for and execute a Citizen Data Scientist initiative, the organization must engage an expert in augmented analytics and develop a comprehensive understanding of technology and cultural changes in order to advance this new idea within the ranks of IT, data scientists, business users, managers and executives.

Learn more about how the transformation of business users to Citizen Data Scientists can benefit your business, and how technology and appropriate Self-Serve Analytics Tools can support Citizen Data Scientists in their new role, and provide fact-based decision-making and advantages to the organization. Explore our free white papers and articles: ‘The Potential Of The Citizen Data Scientist Approach And Augmented Analytics,’ and ‘Leverage Citizen Data Scientists For Business And Business Users.’

Smarten Support Portal Updates – September – 2025!

Case Study : Customer Churn Prediction for India-Based Pharmacy and Wellness Business

Customer Churn Prediction for India-Based Pharmacy and Wellness Business

The Client owns a leading specialty chain of pharmacy and wellness stores in Ahmedabad, India, providing pharmaceuticals, medications, and wellness products to the community and consumers. As a component of its business, it sponsors a popular customer loyalty program.

Embedded BI Tools Ensure User Adoption and Great ROI

Embedded BI is Key to Return on Investment (ROI)

Your business probably spent a lot of time developing a strategy for business intelligence and data democratization. That is time well spent! You want to roll out the solution with care and be sure that your team members, managers and IT staff are ready to use and support the software and to make the most of the investment.

If your business chose the right solution, you will have seamless integration of information from disparate data sources so your team will have the information they need to gather, analyze and present information for confident, swift decision-making and improved results.

‘With the right business intelligence software and embedded BI capabilities, your business can improve overall organizational value for BI tools, provide unique solutions and integration with analytics without significant investment, and improve user adoption and return on investment (ROI) for business intelligence technology.’

There are numerous factors that affect user adoption of business intelligence solutions but one of the primary considerations is ease of access and use. No matter your business industry or environment, there is no doubt that your team members have learned to use critical enterprise applications and perhaps even software and apps that are unique to their role or their division or department.

When a business introduces new software, most users are hesitant to embrace it – not necessarily because they are lazy or resistant, but because they are often overwhelmed with workload and perhaps because they perceive that the time spent to learn this new solution may not provide the value they need.

Of course, it is crucial to choose an easy-to-use, personalized BI tool, but it is equally important to choose a solution with embedded BI capability.

67% of companies say time spent in their applications increased after they embedded analytics.

Seamless integration of Augmented Analytics and Business Intelligence Objects with easy to use, scalable integration APIs ensures that your team has the power of integrated business intelligence when and where they need it, with simple, easy-to-use analytics integration within enterprise and business applications in a single sign-on environment.

Protect Your Business Intelligence Investment with Embedded BI

Business users can access augmented analytics and BI tools from within their enterprise applications or mobile apps. Engender business intelligence data democratization and alleviate user frustration with real business user solutions and deep dive capabilities. Provide user access within their favorite applications to improve user adoption of business intelligence tools, and engender collaboration, data sharing and fact-based decisions.

The team member can access analytics from within popular, familiar apps and software and use analytics in a single sign-on environment to gather and analyze data for presentation and sharing.

Users have access to embedded BI objects from within the selected application so they can view and use integrated dashboards, cross-tab analytics, key performance indicators (KPIs), graphs and reports.

‘There are numerous factors that affect user adoption of business intelligence solutions but one of the primary considerations is ease of access and use.’

With the right business intelligence software and embedded BI capabilities, your business can improve overall organizational value for BI tools, provide unique solutions and integration with analytics without significant investment, and improve user adoption and return on investment (ROI) for business intelligence technology.

You can find out more about the Smarten Embedded BI And Integration APIs solution and add powerful functionality and access to existing ERP, SCM, HRMS, CRM or any other products. Provide analytics capabilities within existing products without major Investment. Your business users and your customers will appreciate the ease-of-use and access and you will gain a competitive advantage. Read our White Paper: ‘Making The Case For Embedded BI And Analytics.’

Case Study : Augmented Analytics for Leading Electric Scooter Manufacturer in India!

Augmented Analytics for Leading Electric Scooter Manufacturer in India

The Client is a leading electric mobility company in India, specializing in high-performance electric two-wheel scooters engineered for sustainable urban transportation. With a robust presence across 200+ cities, the organization leverages lithium-based battery technology, and advanced electric powertrain systems that are tailored to accommodate Indian road conditions.

Augmented Analytics CAN Support Data Scientists Too!

Self-Serve, Augmented Analytics IS Suitable for Data Scientists

The world of data scientists and business analysts is chock full of data and busier than you might expect – especially today! Businesses have discovered the value of data in decision-making and, as markets and competition shift and change, these businesses have come to depend on IT staff and on data scientists to provide data to make decisions at the department, divisional, operational and strategic level.

The problem is, as always…TIME! There aren’t enough analysts and data scientists, the IT team is busy working on other tasks and the clock does not stop ticking.

And there is one other factor at play in the data analytics movement. As data democratization and data literacy drive the enterprise strategy and business users begin to leverage augmented analytics and business intelligence (BI) tools, the data scientist is also called upon to refine and present analytics and reports created by team members in order to ensure that these are appropriate for more strategic decisions.

The world-renowned technology research firm, Gartner, states that, ‘Data Scientists typically spend more than 40% of time in preparing and enriching data.’

Imagine what you, as a data scientist could do with a data analytics solution that can save time on data preparation and data enrichment!

‘When an enterprise includes data scientists, business analysts and IT staff in the roll-out of augmented analytics and self-serve BI tools, it enables productivity, streamlines and speeds the analytical process and improves results.’

You have the tools and systems for data extraction, transformation and loading (ETL), you have scripting tools like R, you have spreadsheets and more, but using all of those tools to gather, analyze, scrub and present that data takes time.

Data Scientists May Not Believe That Augmented Analytics is Suitable for Them…But They’re Wrong!

As a Data Scientist, you have the responsibility and accountability to produce reliable analytics to satisfy all manner of needs within the organization. You never know what corner of the enterprise might need your services but you DO know that your analysis and services must be 100% accurate and dependable. When business users depend on you to produce information on a day-to-day basis, it is nearly impossible to focus on the more strategic, crucial imperatives.

  • What if you could more easily derive data from disparate sources and prepare it for analysis?
  • What if you could integrate R scripting with advanced analytical tools to take your analysis to the next level?
  • What if you can use quick hypothesis and prototyping to choose the right influencers and model accuracy for your project?
  • What if you have a platform where you can roll out interactive dashboards, reports and results of your model production environment in minutes?

When an enterprise includes data scientists, business analysts and IT staff in the roll-out of augmented analytics and self-serve BI tools, it enables productivity, streamlines and speeds the analytical process and improves results. Data Scientists can optimize time and resources and to use their core expertise to achieve results. Data Scientists can use self-serve data preparation, to quickly create datasets without deep SQL or ETL skills, and they can use smart data visualization and tools to use output of algorithms in R, Python or other Data Science platforms to leverage existing investments in these technologies, and they can create and roll-out predictive models in a production environment to support the organization and business user needs.

‘Imagine what you, as a data scientist could do with a data analytics solution that can save time on data preparation and data enrichment!’

As business users create analytics for quick decisions and the organization needs to refine this analysis for strategic use, a data scientist can use the same augmented analytics tools to focus on that project and ensure accuracy, collaborating with Citizen Data Scientists and IT to align analytics with key objectives and goals.

With the time your Data Scientists will save, they can focus on the most critical strategic initiatives and move the enterprise forward with fact-based decision-making.

To learn more about Augmented Analytics that are suitable for data scientists, business analysts, IT staff and business users, and explore the potential of Advanced Reporting Tools, Contact Us now.

Smarten Support Portal Updates – July – 2025!

Leverage Citizen Data Scientists for Business and Business Users

Business and Team Member Benefits of Citizen Data Scientists!

When a business considers the prospect of implementing business intelligence and augmented analytics tools to align objectives and streamline processes and decision-making, the business management and executive team can often see the project as time-consuming and expensive.

In fact, most proposals that include process changes, training and new technology get stalled because:

a. change is hard

b. there is a tendency to say that everything is just fine the way it is

c. the management team believes that the expense is not equal to the value of the transition.

When it comes to BI tools and self-serve analytics, all of these claims can be disproven by results.

‘By providing business users with easy-to-use BI tools and augmented analytics features that produce results and allow them to make the most of their knowledge and time, the organization is more likely to retain its human resource assets and to identify and utilize its team member skills to achieve results, thereby creating a competitive advantage and a more agile, streamlined enterprise.’

In fact, Gartner has predicted that ‘Early adopters of augmented analytics have the potential to realize more strategic and differentiating business benefits from their analytics investments than those who wait until these technologies are widely adopted.’

Results and benefits are proven across the enterprise by businesses that have already adopted business intelligence and augmented analytics.

Minimum Viable Products (MVP) Produces Better Business Start-Up Results

For the organization, these benefits include:

  • Support for data-driven, fact-based decision making
  • Insight and perspective into history, results and trends and patterns for strategy and operational decisions
  • Encouraging collaboration among team members, IT, business analysts and data scientists
  • Business agility and efficiency
  • Leveraging human resource assets and improving productivity
  • Creating a competitive advantage with rapid decision-making and market response
  • Improving and optimizing financial investments, forecasts and predictions

For business users, transitioning to Citizen Data Scientists, the advantages include:

  • Combining professional and industry knowledge with data to achieve accurate results
  • Leveraging simple BI tools and self-serve analytics to receive recommendations and suggestions and make quick, clear decisions
  • Reducing the need for IT and data scientist assistance
  • Collaborating with other business users to create and share data, reports and information
  • Advancing career goals by learning and using tools that combine existing skills with new analytical capabilities
  • Improving data-driven decisions and reducing re-work

By providing business users with easy-to-use BI tools and augmented analytics features that produce results and allow them to make the most of their knowledge and time, the organization is more likely to retain its human resource assets and to identify and utilize its team member skills to achieve results, thereby creating a competitive advantage and a more agile, streamlined enterprise.

‘Gartner has predicted that ‘Early adopters of augmented analytics have the potential to realize more strategic and differentiating business benefits from their analytics investments than those who wait until these technologies are widely adopted.’

If your business wishes to capitalize on the potential of the Citizen Data Scientist approach, it important to work with an IT Partner who can help you define your requirements and strategize for optimal success, providing the augmented analytics tools and knowledge of the industry that is required to position you for success. Get started today with our self-paced FREE Online Citizen Data Scientist course.

Contact Us today to find out how our team can help you to improve business results and increase team collaboration, data literacy, productivity and competitive advantage.

Look to Cross-Tab and Tabular Analytical BI Tools for Clear Results

Cross-Tab and Tabular Reporting Tools Are Foundational!

The evolution of advanced analytics has been rapid and impressive. With features that provide support for business users and help to transition them into Citizen Data Scientists, and the addition of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other capabilities like Natural Language Processing (NLP) and search analytics, augmented analytics is suitable for every team member in your organization. It is easy to be impressed with all of the new bells and whistles and these additions certainly do make a user’s life easier and help the organization to analyze and use data in a more meaningful way.

But while we are admiring these new BI tools and analytics features and technologies, we should give equal respect to the bread and butter of the business intelligence (BI) and analytical landscape! Foundational, comprehensive visualization techniques are not only meaningful, they are mandatory.

‘With flexible views and report formats and interactive features and presentation capabilities, your business users, managers, IT team and data scientists can leverage data across disparate data structures and view and present that data with intuitive formats for fact-based decision-making.’

Analytics and business intelligence (BI) tools provide many such options including:

Cross-Tab – Cross-tabulation analysis (or crosstabs), analyzes and categorizes data to reveal the relationship between two or more variables to help you make sense of survey results, reveal actionable tasks, find patterns and correlations. Cross-tab analytics can be used for categorical variables (with independent or dependent variables), for contingency tables, marginal totals, or conditional frequencies, and many other purposes.

Tabular – Tabular visualization facilitates quick comparison of data in a tabular form, marrying data classification with data presentation to reveal measures and averages in a structured format that is easy to manipulate, compare and understand. Tabular analytics can be used for statistical analysis or units of measure among other uses.

According to research at the University of North Carolina (UNC), cross-tab and tabular analytics account for 90% of the analytical techniques used in all research analysis.

A BI reporting tool that enables users to customize their view and approach and is easy to understand and use will make the user more productive and ensure Return on Investment (ROI).

Analytics Can Be Flashy, But Traditional Cross-Tab and Tabular Visualization is Your Bread and Butter

These foundational analytical visualization techniques are easy to understand and use and are suitable for business users and all team members. When you choose a Business Intelligence reporting tool that enables report, template and document design and configuration and supports preprinted fixed formats too. With flexible views and report formats and interactive features and presentation capabilities, your business users, managers, IT team and data scientists can leverage data across disparate data structures and view and present that data with intuitive formats for fact-based decision-making. IT team members or consultants can leverage a simple, basic programming or scripting environment to define format templates and use data from Datasets and objects to produce stunning pixel perfect reports. Users can preview reports, export data to PDF files and share documents and reports via email at predefined frequency using delivery and publishing agents.

‘While we are admiring new BI tools, features and technologies, we should give equal respect to the bread and butter of the business intelligence (BI) and analytical landscape! Foundational, comprehensive visualization techniques are not only meaningful, they are mandatory.’

To learn more about Traditional BI Tools And Visualization Techniques and the promise of augmented analytics and Advanced Reporting Tools, contact us now. Find out how to  ensure Return on Investment (ROI) and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) results, gain a competitive market advantage, and enable user adoption, read our free White Paper, ‘A Roadmap To ROI And User Adoption Of Augmented Analytics And BI.’ Explore The Benefits of our Augmented Analytics And BI ToolsContact Us. Keep pace with changing enterprise needs and support business agility. Let us help you realize your business goals and objectives with fact-based information, and flexible, scalable technology solutions that will support Citizen Data Scientist initiatives, and improved data literacy and data democratization.

Smarten Support Portal Updates – June – 2025!