6 Reasons You Need to Become a Data Expert for Business Success

Researchers estimate that people absorb five-times the amount of information as our ancestors who lived 25 years ago, and people process as much information today as those in the 15^th century absorbed during their entire lifetime.

These days, big data experts help enterprises discover innovative solutions that lead to prosperity in a competitive marketplace. By revealing hidden patterns among massive stores of information, data scientists help enterprises grow and find new business.

Data science is a relatively new profession in which computer specialists use their technical skills to solve complex problems. To work in the profession, they need creativity, curiosity and a gift for turning data into profit. Additionally, they’re mathematicians, computer scientists and trend spotters.

Most data scientists started out as statisticians or data analysts. However, as big data technology evolved, so did their roles.

The following segments reveal six reasons why it’s a great idea to become a big data expert in today’s job market.

1: There Is a Need for Data Experts

In the United States and around the world, data science job opportunities are abundant, but today’s enterprises are unable to staff many data scientist positions. Resultantly, demand is high for these talented data professionals.

As the need for data scientists expands, it seems that the talent pool is shrinking. In fact, demand is so high for data scientists that companies are willing to teach partially qualified new hires any skills required to fill an open position.

2: Data Can Shift Your Perspective

By providing a digestible synopsis of enormous information repositories, data scientists reduce the probability that enterprise leaders will focus too much on singular factors or events. To help business leaders avoid information overload, today’s data scientists provide executives with dashboards that present information in a clear and concise manner. This high overview of data helps enterprise leaders maintain a balanced perspective and stay focused on long-term objectives. A focus on data trends, rather than extraordinary events, helps executives stay the course.

3: Communication Is Better With Big Data

In the data science field, curiosity, technical skills and business knowledge are traits of exceptional information specialists. Also, data scientists must have persistence and ambition, even if this means exploring a few fruitless rabbit holes. This kind of tenacity makes data scientists invaluable. Furthermore, data scientists use information to tell stories. It is this ability to communicate complex ideas that provides the most value for business leaders.

4: Big Data Is Helping More Businesses Stay Competitive

Across the continuum of industries, business leaders are implementing big data initiatives. As this takes place, the amount of data available to organizations expands—and the value of data scientists rises.

The Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies streamline the process of big data implementation, so much so that small- to medium-sized businesses can now leverage the resource. However, big data systems are still complex enough to require the expertise of specialists.

5: Reduces Costs and Promotes Innovation

Big data studies help enterprise leaders identify corporate strengths and weaknesses. Using this information, executives adjust course and keep their enterprises on track. As an example, indirect costs typically account for more than 25-percent of corporate expenditures. This might include travel expenses, utilities, office supplies and third-party services. With detailed analysis, big data scientists help enterprises reduce expenses significantly and streamline corporate spending.

6: Data Creates New Solutions

Today, enterprise leaders want quantifiable, data-driven, empirical evidence to make decisions, which helps firms forecast risk exposure and save limited resources. Accordingly, data scientists continually search for opportunities for improvement. By uncovering weaknesses in existing organizational processes and analytical systems, they discover new ways to operate. These discoveries drive innovation, new product development and revenue.

Training for a Career in Data Science

The roles of data scientists are as unique as the companies where they accept employment, and the profession is a relatively new learning track for universities. After all, the occupation only officially emerged in 2008.

While the journey toward becoming a data scientist is sometimes unclear, all people hopeful of entering this field must have an abundance of curiosity, despite their chosen learning path. Educational offerings for training in the field aren’t as expansive as other, more traditional learning tracks, but as more institutions incorporate data science learning paths, hopefully, the body of available talent will expand.

Currently, business leaders are still learning where data scientists fit into an organization, how they add the most value and how to evaluate their performance. Still, today’s skilled data scientists must fend off recruiters, as the shortage of available talent in the field is severe. As a result, trained and qualified data scientists are, and will continue to be, in high demand.

While data scientists are well remunerated, they also contribute to the good of society. With self-motivation and persistence, success is imminent in the field.