Tag: Augmented Analytics

Understanding How Businesses Use Mobile BI to Achieve Results!

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October 2, 2024

Mobile BI Business Use Illustrates Real Advantages!

Mobile Business Intelligence (or Mobile BI) is defined as ‘a system comprising both technical and organizational elements that present historical and/or real-time information to its users for analysis on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets (not laptops), to enable effective decision-making and management support, for the overall purpose of increasing firm performance.’

Aberdeen Group reports that businesses adopt Mobile BI to:

  • Improve business process efficiency
  • Improve employee productivity
  • Make better decisions, more quickly
  • Provide better customer service
  • Deliver real-time bi-directional data access to make decisions anytime and anywhere.

‘Mobile BI benefits go well beyond simple reporting and the sharing of data across user groups, to address real business issues and to keep users up to date and allow them to respond to real world, real-time issues.’

As local and global competition increases, most businesses are looking for ways to improve their competitive advantage, and to quickly adapt to the changing market, to employee needs and to customer buying behavior.

It can be helpful to consider some real-world business use cases, in order to understand the value and benefit of incorporating a Mobile BI solution within your technology landscape and your analytics approach.

The advantages of Mobile BI go beyond team collaboration and individual reporting needs, to provide the background and foundational information needed to make decisions on business strategy and to understand customer preferences.

Real World Business Use of Mobile BI Reveals Benefits and Advantages

The following list of companies represents a small sampling of businesses currently using Mobile BI to improve business results and efficiency:

Amazon – Amazon analyzes purchasing behavior and browsing history to predict what products a customer might want to see, and what they are likely to buy, personalizing the customer experience and making it easier for customers to complete a transaction. BI tools help the business to forecast demand and ensure that stock is available.

Starbucks – The business has implemented a loyalty program to help with customer engagement and sales, personalizing marketing strategies and allowing customers to order, pay and receive rewards. It gathers data using its digital channels and uses that data to create targeted offers and to improve customer retention, as well as increasing the amount customers spend during a visit.

Netflix – The company uses BI tools to personalize the viewing experience and to analyze customer viewing preferences and push specific options to the customer based on viewing history. Mobile BI tools allow teams to analyze and share information regarding regional viewing and to make decisions on the fly.

Uber – The company business model is dependent on the rapid changes and shifting behavior of customers from one local and regional area to the next. Real-time pricing and operational decisions are made to support surge pricing and driver deployment for high demand areas. The back-end systems and BI tools allow drivers to access information using the Uber app so that they can quickly respond to the changing environment.

Tesla – Mobile BI and wireless car data analytics allow Tesla to connect remotely to corporate offices and collect and analyze vehicle data to address issues and update customers on maintenance etc.

X/Twitter – Mobile BI provides support or moderators to identify and quickly address platform safety issues, violations, etc. The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) with BI tools allows the business to quickly respond and ensure a safe user experience.

Mobile BI provides the background and foundational information needed to make decisions on business strategy and to understand customer preferences.

These examples illustrate the many ways in which Mobile BI can be used to address business issues, providing user access and analytics for team members no matter where they are and how they need to use the data. Mobile BI benefits go well beyond simple reporting and the sharing of data across user groups, to address real business issues and to keep users up to date and allow them to respond to real world, real-time issues.

If you want to support your business user team and provide a foundation for BI tools that will better serve your team and your customers, explore Smarten Mobile BI benefits and features,  with powerful functionality and access for your business users including out-of-the-box Mobile BI and advanced analytics for every team member. For more information on Mobile BI and Augmented Analytics, read our article, ‘Understanding The Truth About Mobile BI.’

Original Post : Understanding How Businesses Use Mobile BI to Achieve Results!

Use Key Influencer Analytics to Understand Data Relationships!

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September 26, 2024

Analytics Solutions Should Include Key Influencer Analytics!

What is Key Influencer Analytics ? Simply put, Key Influencer Analytics is an analytical technique that helps the user analyze and understand the various factors affecting an outcome, what variables impact the metric, and the ranking of those factors. Key Influencer Analytics takes the guesswork out of decisions by clearly illustrating what factors influence success of a pricing strategy, a business location choice, a marketing campaign, a research project, etc.

‘With the right analytics solution, your users can simply point to the dataset they want to analyze and Key Influencer Analytics will identify the target and the influencers or predictors that will affect the target, along with its impact.’

Grand View Research estimates the analytics software market at nearly 142B USD, with an expected growth of nearly 14% over the next five to six years. The reason for this growth is simple. In order to succeed in their market of choice, businesses must understand the competition, the customer and how their products and services are perceived and embraced in the market, so they can plan for the future and adapt to changes.

Key Influencer Analytics is Key to a Comprehensive Analytics Solution

There are a few factors that will impact the efficiency and effectiveness of the analytics solution you choose.

  • First, the data volume you want to analyze can be very large, and the data can come from disparate systems, so the ability to integrate and gather all data in one place is important. Depending on the size of the dataset a user selects, there may be hundreds or thousands of variables, and business users often find it difficult to identify the rights ones. Yet without the ability to identify the right variables, the business is likely to measure and attend to the wrong things.
  • Secondly, you must provide easy-to-use tools that your team can leverage to find what they need. Users should have interactive features that allow them to see and explore other combinations and impacts and can select target and predictors, and use them for models, reports or KPIs. Influencer Analytics empowers every business user and allows them quickly select and target data to achieve results without the assistance of a data scientist, IT professional or analyst.
  • Third, your team needs key influencer analytics to understand the interrelationships of data points and how they affect outcomes so they can adapt and adjust. With the right analytics solution, your users can simply point to the dataset they want to analyze and Key Influencer Analytics will identify the target and the influencers or predictors that will affect the target, along with its impact and it provides crucial metrics such as mean, outliers, and others and identifies relationship and distribution among variables. The system will auto-suggest relationships and present distribution and impact using the most appropriate visualization.

Here are just a few of the benefits of Key Influencer Analytics:

  • Identify what matters most in your data!
  • Understand the impact and interdependence of variables
  • Leverage auto-suggestions and machine learning to get data insights
  • Identify influencers affecting the target variable with auto-suggestions and quick maneuvers using different combinations

‘Key Influencer Analytics takes the guesswork out of decisions by clearly illustrating what factors influence success of a pricing strategy, a business location choice, a marketing campaign, a research project, etc.’

With Key Influencer Analytics your team can address the right issues and capitalize on opportunities to optimize results. Explore Smarten Augmented Analytics modules and components and the benefits of Key Influencer Analytics for your team and your enterprise.

Original Post : Use Key Influencer Analytics to Understand Data Relationships!

Choose Augmented Analytics Designed for Business Users!

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September 11, 2024

Avoid Complex Analytics Solutions (Your Users Will Hate)

When a business is considering a business intelligence or analytics solution, it is important to recognize that today’s solutions are very different than the solutions of the past. Not only do they include more analytical techniques and features, but they have come a long way in providing access to sophisticated analytics for the average enterprise team member.

Harvard Business Review Analytics Service reports that

a) businesses can substantially improve business performance by giving frontline workers modern self-service analytics tools to enable fast intelligent action and,

b) not all self-service analytics provide this effective approach.

Choose Augmented Analytics Designed for Business Users and Get the Most From Your Solution

The Harvard Business Review Analytics Service surveyed nearly 500 executives and found that they reported significant performance improvement when they empowered frontline workers with augmented analytics. More than one-third of those surveyed noted improvement in customer and employee engagement and in product and service quality.

While some businesses may still be using business intelligence and analytics that are designed for data scientists and IT professionals, most of those are actively working to upgrade and/or migrate to augmented analytics and solutions that are designed for self-serve business user access.

Here’s why:

  • Search-based, self-serve analytics provides swift access to data and familiar natural language processing (NLP) search capability so business users can ask a question, get an answer and drill down to discover the root cause of issues. There is no need for the user to wait for IT or a data scientist to produce a report. They can continue to work on a task or a problem with full insight into results, challenges and possibilities.
  • The enterprise can enable data democratization and data literacy across the business landscape, thereby ensuring that there is a rapid response to market and competitive changes and to changing customer buying behavior.
  • Business users can leverage their industry knowledge and functional skillset and combine data insight with experience to produce the best results.
  • Intuitive, easy-to-use solutions help to combat user resistance and ensure user adoption. While there are always cultural issues surrounding this type of adoption and the perceived changes in responsibilities, when business users see the value of having crucial information at their fingertips, the enterprise can ease the transition and ensure user adoption.
  • No matter the role of the user, the team can enjoy the benefits of augmented analytics and make the transition to Citizen Data Scientists to improve collaboration, data sharing and fact-based decision-making.
  • The business can understand quality and maintenance issues, refine customer targeting and marketing optimization, and make appropriate financial investments, and they can analyze trends and patterns and make forecasts and predictions.
  • When the enterprise adopts these tools and techniques, they allow Citizen Data Scientists to perform analytics on a day-to-day basis and, where appropriate to effectively interact with and collaborate with the IT team and data scientists to refine data and prepare it for more strategic initiatives, so there is a seamless handoff from the business user to the analytical community, when and as necessary.

When the business is ready to acquire augmented analytics or to upgrade from existing, more restrictive solutions designed for professional analytical resources, it is important to choose the right solution – one with sophisticated tools that are presented in an intuitive user interface with auto-suggestions and recommendations to assist business users, and ample personalization of dashboards and reports.

With the right IT consulting partner, you can select and implement an Augmented Analytics Solution with business intelligence (BI) and advanced capabilities, and ensure that every user can leverage these tools, no matter their skillset or technical capabilities. Explore our free white paper, ‘A Roadmap To ROI And User Adoption Of Augmented Analytics And BI Tools.’

Original Post: Choose Augmented Analytics Designed for Business Users!

Embedded BI Simplifies Business User Analytics!

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September 10, 2024

Use Embedded BI to Encourage Business User Analytics Adoption!

Today, even the smallest business depends on technology and software to manage the business process, capture data and move the enterprise forward. No matter the size of a business, executives and managers now realize the value of providing analytics to make decisions. In the past, the analytics process was the sole domain of IT, business analysts and data scientists but today, organizations know that data democratization and data literacy are key to business performance and to keeping pace with the market and with changing customer buying behavior.

In order to accommodate this need, the business must provide easy-to-use analytics solutions that offer sophisticated functionality and features in an intuitive environment so team members can embrace analytics and willingly adopt these solutions.

‘Embedded BI brings the power of analytics closer to the user and allows them to use popular software and apps to achieve analytical goals with a single sign-on approach.’

If you want to take advantage of this approach, there is a consideration you should include in your strategy – and that consideration might surprise you. Consider the number of applications and software products your team uses to complete tasks and to find information. Did you know that, by some estimates, team members lose up to ten (10) percent of their time switching tasks and applications. One of the most frustrating realities an employee can face is trying to gather and analyze data. Suppose you want to analyze sales for a particular location, or a particular sales team for a certain period of time. In the old technology world, you would have to export the data, or you might use an integrated analytics solution and gather the data there by choosing the fields you want to analyze.

Embedded BI Gives Business Users Access to Intuitive Analytics Within Familiar Applications

Today, you can use Embedded Business Intelligence (BI) to find and analyze data without ever leaving the confines of your sales software. Embedded BI is designed to embed within a popular, familiar software platform. By placing this capability within a familiar application or software solution, the organization gives its team members access to data, pulling information from the system of origin, integrating and streamlining data processing and reporting time.

Embedded BI brings the power of analytics closer to the user and allows them to use popular software and apps to achieve analytical goals with a single sign-on approach, so they don’t lose time switching between software solutions or exporting and importing data. Users have access to dashboards, charts, graphs and analytical tools, all within the ERP, HRM, CRM, SCM or other enterprise solution. Embedded BI allows users to integrate analytics within workflow and collect and analyze data easily.

When considering an Embedded BI solution, be sure you choose one that accommodates access both in the office and on the road, with mobile access that enables business users to take analytics on the road.

‘In order to accommodate this need, the business must provide easy-to-use analytics solutions that offer sophisticated functionality and features in an intuitive environment so team members can embrace analytics and willingly adopt these solutions.’

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.’

Original Post : Embedded BI Simplifies Business User Analytics!

Plan Carefully for a Citizen Data Scientist Program

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August 30, 2024

Create a Plan for Citizen Data Scientists

The term, ‘Citizen Data Scientist’ has been around since 2016, when the world-renowned technology research firm, Gartner, coined the phrase. Whether you want to know more about the concept, understand the concept and would like to know if your business can leverage this approach to improve its market position and customer visibility, or you have embraced the Citizen Data Scientist approach and are looking for ways to expand and refine the concept within your own business environment, we are here to help.

As Gartner research states, ‘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.’

Planning and Preparing for a Citizen Data Scientist Initiative

One of the most important aspects of any new, large scale initiative, is preparation and when it comes to the Citizen Data Scientist approach, preparation is equally important. Let’s look at some of the primary factors and considerations you must include in your planning process.

‘Will you deploy the augmented analytics solution across the entire enterprise at once, or will you roll it out by division, department, location, etc.? Who will be in charge of the deployment?’

Review Technology and Business Processes

Look at your current technology and all the places your data resides (data warehouses, the cloud (private or public), best-of-breed software, legacy software, ERP, CRM, HR, SCM, and other focused solutions that support a particular division, team or department. You will want to integrate data from all possible sources in order to give your users the information they need to perform analytics.

Work with your IT team, and (if you have already chosen an IT consultant) with your advisors to analyze the technology and infrastructure and establish a plan of attack. Consider the network, hardware and software, and decide whether you will want Embedded BI within any popular software solution to allow users to leverage a single sign-on environment to access data and analyze it all in one place.

Review business processes, workflow, approval loops etc., and see where you can gain advantage by including analytics and technology to improve productivity and the quality and speed of decisions.

Involving Stakeholders, Customers, Users, IT, etc.

Management and/or IT cannot plan for and execute this type of change alone. You will need to understand how cascading analytics throughout the organization will impact your users, your customers and others. Establish a team that includes representatives from the various functions, levels and areas within the enterprise.

Listen to their concerns and address those concerns with an appropriate plan for deployment, training, ongoing support, etc. Otherwise, you are unlikely to succeed. User adoption is important but you can also use this time to identify and highlight those areas where you can find opportunities and thereby improve the success metrics and outcomes you hope to achieve.

Choosing an Augmented Analytics Solution

Choosing the right augmented analytics and business intelligence (BI) solution will drive success of a Citizen Data Scientist initiative. These solutions are key to helping you achieve your goals and to supporting your business users as they make the transition to Citizen Data Scientists. Look for a full suite of features and functionality to support your users.

Not all augmented analytics solutions are equal! Be sure the solution you choose has all the features you need and will be easy for your users to learn and adopt. Look for a comprehensive solution suite that includes:

Planning for Deployment

Will you deploy the augmented analytics solution across the entire enterprise at once, or will you roll it out by division, department, location, etc.? Who will be in charge of the deployment? Your team should include representatives from the various groups that have a vested interest in the outcome. When you choose an IT consultant, they can help you plan for and execute your strategy so that it is successful and you are not overwhelmed.

Depending on the solution you choose, you will have to consider citizen data scientist training. While there are citizen data scientist certification courses, if you choose the right augmented analytics solution you are not likely to need this type of training but, rather a simple introduction that will explain the new role, how to work with and collaborate with data scientists and IT and how to use the augmented analytics solution to get the information the business user needs in a way that is meaningful to them.

‘One of the most important aspects of any new, large scale initiative, is preparation and when it comes to the Citizen Data Scientist approach, preparation is equally important.’

For a detailed discussion of Citizen Data Scientists and related topics, read our article: ‘What Is A Citizen Data Scientist, What Is Their Role, What Are The Benefits Of Citizen Data Scientists…And More!’

Contact Us to find out how augmented analytics Technology can support your enterprise, and ensure analytical clarity and results. Discover the next level of Self-Serve Analytics and explore online Citizen Data Scientist Training and the features and modules of a seamless, sophisticated, easy-to-use augmented analytics solution to see how your business can use analytics to achieve its goals. Explore our complementary articles on Citizen Data Scientists: ‘The Importance And Benefits Of A Citizen Data Scientist Initiative,’ ‘What Is A Citizen Data Scientist And How Has Their Role Changed?’ ‘Engage A Skilled IT Partner And Achieve Citizen Data Scientist Success,’ and ‘What Is A Citizen Data Scientist, What Is Their Role, What Are The Benefits Of Citizen Data Scientists…And More!’

Original Post: Plan Carefully for a Citizen Data Scientist Program!

What Are the Benefits of a Citizen Data Scientist Initiative?

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August 29, 2024

Understand the Benefits of Citizen Data Scientists

Businesses are discovering the importance and the value of using Citizen Data Scientists within the organization to collaborate and share data and to learn from each other and from the patterns, trends and insights data can provide and use that insight to solve problems and to identify opportunities.

The Importance of Citizen Data Scientists has become a focus for the wise business executive and manager. Understanding Citizen Data Scientists and how they can supplement analytics and help the organization to be more successful, can be a real competitive advantage for a business, whether that business is in a local market, a global industry, a vertical niche or a broad corporate footprint.

‘There is ample research to illustrate the value of an educated team, and the more information your team has to make the right decision, the less rework and missteps the organization will experience.’

In this article, we focus on the Benefits Of Citizen Data Scientists, assuming a well-conceived program. These benefits assume the identification and selection of an appropriate augmented analytics solution to support business users and the business organization.

Benefits to the Enterprise

  • Turning business users into Citizen Data Scientists can have many benefits for the business organization.
  • Allows the organization to improve data democratization and leverage all-important data to make objective decisions
  • Creates a metrics-based decision-making process that is measurable and can be easily adapted and managed
  • Improves the value of team member contribution
  • Optimizes professionals skills of data scientists and IT professionals and allows them to focus on strategic and operational tasks and goals
  • Improves Competitive Advantage by optimizing resources, skills, knowledge and data
  • Allows the organization to be agile and to adapt quickly to the market and to changing customer behavior
  • Identifies challenges and issues before they become a real problem
  • Identifies opportunities for growth and customer engagement

Benefits to Data Scientists

  • Allows Data Scientists to focus on strategic initiatives, rather than constantly responding to business user requests
  • Allows Data Scientists to collaborate and engage with business users in a meaningful way to build teams and expand knowledge and understanding of the business
  • Creates the foundation for additional tools and techniques that can be leveraged by Data Scientists with advanced skills

Benefits to IT Professionals

  • Enables IT professionals to focus on day-to-day and strategic objectives and tasks without having to respond to business user requests for reports and information from data repositories
  • Provides additional data governance and the ability to monitor and track ‘popular’ data and reports and to create environs that offer users and data scientists the right support
  • Allows IT professionals to collaborate with business users and data scientists to better support the organization and to identify opportunities for their own growth and potential

Benefits to Business Users

  • Builds an understanding of data in a way that is meaningful to a business user role and responsibilities
  • Supports fact-based decision-making and alleviates issues resulting from decisions made by guesswork and opinion
  • Allows users to easily integrate and gather data for analytics and to leverage sophisticated tools in an intuitive environment
  • Improves business user data literacy and data democratization providing information that is crucial to team members and to the successful completion of tasks and workflow
  • Supports day-to-day analytics and allows business users to make clear, concise recommendations and suggestions to improve outcomes
  • Allows business users to collaborate with data scientists and It professionals for refinement of analytics to take data insight to the next level for strategic decisions
  • Enables career advancement and expands knowledge, team visibility and success
  • Ensures that all team members within the enterprise have the right information to do their jobs and to support organizational goals and objectives

The Risks Of Empowering Citizen Data Scientists are often discussed in industry publications, so it is important to mention this side of the argument. Citizen Data Scientist pros and cons typically fall into these general categories:

  • Business Users should not be given access to data because of security or data governance concerns
    Note: The right augmented analytics tools and solutions will provide multi-layered security and allow IT to create appropriate access to data and ensure the security and privacy of the data the executive management team wishes to isolate or guard.
  • Analytics is not appropriate for business users because they can’t understand the data or reports and may use the data in appropriately
    Note: While every business users may not need to use data analytics every day, many will. Roles and responsibilities will dictate this need and, with the right solution, even users with average technology skills can gather and create analytics that are easy to understand and will guide the team to clear, concise results and decisions.
  • The use of analytics in the general business community is not necessary and does not provide value
    Note: There is ample research to illustrate the value of an educated team, and the more information your team has to make the right decision, the less rework and missteps the organization will experience. Think of your team as an army. Everyone has to know what direction they are headed, and have the information they need to get the job done, or your success will be at risk. Provide the support your team needs to learn the new approach and trust them to apply their market, industry and functional knowledge to analytics to achieve the best outcome and the clearest decisions.
  • The cost of providing analytics to business users is too high and is not supported by the value it provides
    Note: The right augmented analytics solution does not have to be expensive, or difficult to implement or learn. Assess your current situation and your needs and choose a solution that will support your team and your budget and schedule. It IS possible and it will provide numerous benefits and add value far beyond the cost of the solution.
Minimum Viable Products (MVP) Produces Better Business Start-Up Results

Turning Business Users Into Citizen Data Scientists is a process that should not be taken lightly – but that doesn’t mean it is impossible or even daunting. It simply means you must prepare and, like any other shift within your organization, you must adapt your culture, your technology, your business processes and your workflow.

‘Understanding Citizen Data Scientists and how they can supplement analytics and help the organization to be more successful, can be a real competitive advantage for a business, whether that business is in a local market, a global industry, a vertical niche or a broad corporate footprint.’

For a detailed discussion of Citizen Data Scientists and related topics, read our article: ‘What Is A Citizen Data Scientist, What Is Their Role, What Are The Benefits Of Citizen Data Scientists…And More!’

Contact Us to find out how augmented analytics Technology can support your enterprise, and ensure analytical clarity and results. Discover the next level of Self-Serve Analytics and explore online Citizen Data Scientist Training and the features and modules of a seamless, sophisticated, easy-to-use augmented analytics solution to see how your business can use analytics to achieve its goals. Explore our complementary articles on Citizen Data Scientists: ‘What Is A Citizen Data Scientist And How Has Their Role Changed?’ ‘Planning And Preparing For A Citizen Data Scientist Initiative,’ ‘Engage A Skilled IT Partner And Achieve Citizen Data Scientist Success,’ and ‘What Is A Citizen Data Scientist, What Is Their Role, What Are The Benefits Of Citizen Data Scientists…And More!’

Original Post: What Are the Benefits of a Citizen Data Scientist Initiative?

What is a Citizen Data Scientist and How Has the Role Changed?

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August 28, 2024

Defining and Understanding the Citizen Data Scientist

The world-renowned technology research firm, Gartner, first introduced the concept of the Citizen Data Scientist in 2016. Since then, the idea has grown in popularity, and the role has grown in importance and prominence.

‘To fulfill the role of a Citizen Data Scientist, business users today can leverage augmented analytics solutions; that is analytics that provide simple recommendations and suggestions to help users easily choose visualization and predictive analytics techniques from within the analytical tool without the need for expert analytical skills.’

Gartner defines a citizen data scientist 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.’

Who is a Citizen Data Scientist? The role of a citizen data scientist is played by a business user or team member within the organization. The typical profile of an ideal Citizen Data Scientist is a person who is respected within the organization, and often shares data and information with other users to collaborate and produce outcomes that are designed to achieve goals and objectives and produce a successful outcome. These individuals may already be ‘power users’ of business applications and may have developed and reported or presented data to others with an eye toward clarifying their decision-making. Citizen Data Scientist candidates may also be IT team members who are interested in data science. In any case, these candidates will typically be uniquely curious, interested in data analytics and devoted to fact-based decisions and team collaboration.

The Definition and Evolution of the Citizen Data Scientist Role

Who are Citizen Data Scientists within your own organization? You will know them by their willingness to learn new things, and to advance their own visibility and their own careers by using new skills to improve results within your organization. What are Citizen Analysts? They are team members who are not IT professionals, data scientists or business analysts but are willing and able to leverage analytics and data science tools to solve business problems.

It took a while for the global business community to embrace the concept of Citizen Data Scientists and, even today, there are those naysayers who believe that the only correct approach to analytics is by using Data Scientists or business analysts or engaging the internal IT team to create reports and provide analytics for decision-making.

But the race to compete and the complexities and rapid rate of change have forced businesses to look for alternatives and the Citizen Data Scientist role has become more popular as those leading the charge prove the value of the role to the organization and to the business users, data scientists and IT professionals.

The role of the Citizen Data Scientist began as a simple augmentation to gather data and create reports for daily use but Interest In The Role Has Tripled Over The Past Decade, and the responsibilities and visibility of the Citizen Data Scientist have evolved.

Much of the evolution and the potential of the role has been driven by the evolution of business intelligence (BI) tools and the introduction of augmented analytics and solutions that employ natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning to enable those with average technical skills to gather and analyze data and produce results for clear insight, using sophisticated tools that are designed to be simple enough for the average business user to understand.

As team members perform these tasks, share data and collaborate, the business can engender data democratization and improve data literacy across the enterprise.

To fulfill the role of a Citizen Data Scientist, business users today can leverage augmented analytics solutions; that is analytics that provide simple recommendations and suggestions to help users easily choose visualization and predictive analytics techniques from within the analytical tool without the need for expert analytical skills.

When a Citizen Data Scientist uses these tools, the resulting analysis can be combined with the professional knowledge and specific domain skills of the individual to better understand and gain insight into trends, patterns, issues and opportunities and improve time to market, accuracy of predictions, and metrics and measurements.

Adopting these tools and techniques and actively engaging in augmented analytics allows the Citizen Data Scientist to more effectively interact with and collaborate with the IT team and data scientists to prepare data and use data in use cases, and to refine outcomes and improve data-driven decision making across the enterprise.

One of the most important lessons learned in the past decade is that the Citizen Data Scientist role can be rewarding to the organization and to the business user. But to succeed, the enterprise must plan carefully. It must understand how to use Citizen Data Scientists and create an environment that allows for this transition. Selecting a business intelligence or augmented analytics tool and deploying that tool does not, in and of itself, solve your problems. You must plan for the cultural shift and ensure that the business users have the support they need to transition into the citizen data scientist role.

‘The typical profile of an ideal Citizen Data Scientist is a person who is respected within the organization, and often shares data and information with other users to collaborate and produce outcomes that are designed to achieve goals and objectives and produce a successful outcome.’

For a detailed discussion of Citizen Data Scientists and related topics, read our article: ‘What Is A Citizen Data Scientist, What Is Their Role, What Are The Benefits Of Citizen Data Scientists…And More!’

Contact Us to find out how augmented analytics Technology can support your enterprise, and ensure analytical clarity and results. Discover the next level of Self-Serve Analytics and explore online Citizen Data Scientist Training and the features and modules of a seamless, sophisticated, easy-to-use augmented analytics solution to see how your business can use analytics to achieve its goals. Explore our complementary articles on Citizen Data Scientists: ‘The Importance And Benefits Of A Citizen Data Scientist Initiative,’ ‘Planning And Preparing For A Citizen Data Scientist Initiative,’ ‘Engage A Skilled IT Partner And Achieve Citizen Data Scientist Success,’ and ‘What Is A Citizen Data Scientist, What Is Their Role, What Are The Benefits Of Citizen Data Scientists…And More!’

Original Post: What is a Citizen Data Scientist and How Has the Role Changed?

Citizen Data Scientists Can Partner With Data Scientists!

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August 6, 2024

A Citizen Data Scientist Initiative Can Optimize Data Scientists and Encourage a Data-Driven Culture!

According to some estimates, the average salary of a Data Scientist in the United States is over $150,000 per year. If your business wishes to accommodate a ‘data-first’ strategy to improve metrics and measurable success and avoid guesswork and strategies that are based on opinion rather than fact, it can either employ a team of expensive professionals, or it can take a different approach.

‘Citizen Data Scientists can use their knowledge of a business sector, industry, function or market to drive questions and develop reports and presentations to illustrate issues, identify problems and find opportunities for growth and competitive positioning, and share this data (and the search and analytical techniques) with other users.’

Citizen Data Scientists are business users who have a place on your team and are hired because of their professional and career experience in a particular industry, business function or discipline. When they are given access to data analytics, they can merge their knowledge of an industry, e.g., research, healthcare, law, finance, sales, supply chain, production, construction etc., with data integrated from databases, best-of-breed software programs, ERP, SCM, HRM and other systems and use sophisticated analytical tools in an easy-to-use, intuitive environment to gather and analyze data and produce insightful, concise results that are meaningful to their role.

Leverage Citizen Data Scientists to Augmented Data Scientist Teams

Depending on the size, market and industry of your business, you may choose to augment your staff with one or more data scientists to refine results produced by Citizen Data Scientists on a day-to-day basis. So, if a power user or business users discovers a challenge or an opportunity and your management team wishes to further explore the issue to understand its strategic or operational value, a Data Scientist can take the predictive model or other analytical report produced by a Citizen Data Scientist and refine the results for executive review.

Whether you choose to employ the services of a Data Scientist, provide business analysts or IT professionals to support your business users, you can create a comprehensive foundation for analytics across your organization.

By democratizing data analytics you can achieve many benefits, including:

  • Improved Data Literacy Across the Enterprise
  • Improved Productivity of Data Scientists, IT and Business Analysts (who can spend time on strategic initiatives rather than producing daily reports)
  • Optimized Return on Investment (ROI) and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for all software and systems
  • Fact-Based Decisions and Metrics-Driven Strategies, Goals and Objectives
  • Team Member Career Advancement
  • Optimization of Resources and Improved Team Productivity

A comprehensive self-serve augmented analytics solution will include Modern Business Intelligence (BI) and Reporting with Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Self-Serve Data Preparation, Assisted Predictive Modeling, and Smart Data Visualization with auto-suggestions to drive the analytical techniques and illustration of data based on data type, volume, etc., and other tools like Embedded BI, Mobile BI, Key Influencer Analytics, Sentiment Analysis, and Anomaly Alerts and Monitoring.

With these tools, the Citizen Data Scientist can leverage Natural Language Processing (NLP) and search analytics with machine learning to ask questions using simple human queries and receive insightful answers. They can use their knowledge of a business sector, industry, function or market to drive questions and develop reports and presentations to illustrate issues, identify problems and find opportunities for growth and competitive positioning, and share this data (and the search and analytical techniques) with other users.

Citizen Data Scientists can predict customer responses to new product features, and to new marketing campaigns, analyze the likelihood of fraud or risk, identify supply chain issues, etc. These tools can also help the organization to foster collaboration and data sharing and encourage business users to innovate, create and explore opportunities using data-driven, factual information.

‘When Citizen Data Scientists are given access to data analytics, they can merge their knowledge of an industry, e.g., research, healthcare, law, finance, sales, supply chain, production, construction etc., with data integrated from databases, best-of-breed software programs, ERP, SCM, HRM and other systems and use sophisticated analytical tools in an easy-to-use, intuitive environment to gather and analyze data and produce insightful, concise results that are meaningful to their role.’

These are just a few of the factors you must consider when implementing a Citizen Data Scientist approach. Business users who are interested in becoming a Citizen Data Scientist must be willing to embrace new technology and tools and working at the leading edge of a new approach to collaboration and decision-making. initiative. Consider engaging an expert for your Citizen Data Scientist. IT consultants with experience and skill in this area can provide crucial support to help you succeed with your Citizen Data Scientist initiative and can provide simple Training Programs to bring your team on board and help them see the value to themselves and to the organization.

Original Post : Leverage Citizen Data Scientists to Augmented Data Scientist Teams!