Requirements for Advanced Analytics

The organizations are increasingly interested in Advanced Analytics. With this increase interest, there also arises a question: What skills are needed to work with advanced analytics? IT-Director.com published an article on this issue, written by Fern Halper. She commented that while many kinds of “advanced analytics” have been around for the last 20+ years and the term may simply be a way to invigorate the business analytics market, the point is that companies are finally starting to realize the value this kind of analysis can provide. She made a list with five skills you should have to start working with Advanced Analytics:

- It’s about the data. So, thoroughly understand your data. A business user needs to understand all aspects of his or her data. This includes answers to questions such as, “What is a customer?” “What does it mean if a data field is blank?” “Is there seasonality in my time series data?” It also means understanding what kind of derived variables (e.g. a ratio) you might be interested in and how you want to calculate them.

- Garbage in, Garbage out. Appreciate data quality issues. A business user analyzing data cannot simply assume that the data (from whatever source) is absolutely fine. It might be the case, but you still need to check. Part of this ties to understanding your data, but it also means first looking at the data and asking if it make sense. And, what do you do with data that doesn’t make sense?

- Know what questions to ask. I remember a time in graduate school when, excited by having my data and trying to analyze it, a wise professor told me not to simply throw statistical models at the data because you can. First, know what questions you are trying to answer from the data. Ask yourself if you have the right data to answer the questions. Look at the data to see what it is telling you. Then start to consider the models. Knowing what questions to ask will require business acumen.

- Don’t skip the training step. Know how to use tools and what the tools can do for you. Again, it is simple to throw data at a model, especially if the software system suggests a certain model. However, it is important to understand what the models are good for. When does it make sense to use a decision tree? What about survival analysis? Certain tools will take your data and suggest a model. My concern is that if you don’t know what the model means, it makes it more difficult to defend your output. That is why vendors suggest training.

- Be able to defend your output. At the end of the day, you’re the one who needs to present your analysis to your company. Make sure you know enough to defend it. Turn the analysis upside down, ask questions of it, and make sure you can articulate the output.