A leader's guide to data analysis
- 1. A Leader’s guide to Data Analytics NarasingaMoorthy V
- 2. Skills for the 21st Century: • Its not technical skills for sure. • Managing the project with analytics does not require Math genius or a computer post-graduate degree. • Problem Solving and thinking skills are extremely important.
- 3. Start with the Problem
- 4. Integrating Problem and Analytics • It is extremely important to link the problem with the analytic techniques to be used. • Managers should not rely on Data Scientists to take the lead. • Overall solution strategy should include the problem in the first place.
- 5. • Whether it is a software company that wants to improve its advertising campaign, or a fast food company that wants to streamline its global operations, the data collection has to match the specific business problem at hand. • “You can’t just hope that the data that gets incidentally created in the course of business is the kind of data that’s going to lead to breakthroughs”
- 6. Understand the Data Generation Process
- 7. • Managers should be in a position to distinguish between the data that is useful for generating a hypothesis or not. • This line has to be drawn during the initial phase of strategic solution • Quality analysis cannot be performed if we don’t know where the data got generated from. Bad Data Vs Good Data
- 8. • There is a real danger in managers assuming that the analysis was done in a reasonable way • It is important to understand how the data we have is selected in the first place. • Selected data has to be relevant to the problem.
- 10. • “Knowing what you know about your business, is there a plausible explanation for that result?” • Data scientists do not have all the domain expertise managers have, and analytics is no substitute for understanding the business.
- 11. Example: • People were trying to sell a Subaru station wagon with four-wheel drive, and they completely ignored the fact that there was a giant blizzard in February, which caused more people to buy station wagons with four-wheel drive.” In cases like these, he says, having the data is not enough.
- 12. Know it- Don’t Just Think it.
- 13. Knowing it…! • Decision making is an evidence based medicine. • As big data and analytics are bringing revolution, managers with a working knowledge of data science will have an edge • Make the company data literate.
- 15. Relevance for India Managers: • Link the analytics insight to the industry related problem solution • Understand the use of data analytics on the solution that solves the problem. • See the bigger picture every now and then. Don’t get lost into the details.
- 16. The End