Data Science For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Chapter 9

Developing Your Business Acumen

IN THIS CHAPTER

Differentiating business acumen from subject matter expertise

Mapping out how data science professionals increase business profits

Increasing your business acumen

Digging into best practices for data science documentation

Data science is somewhat of a cross between software engineering and business consulting: You have to know enough code to do ad hoc analysis and build accurate predictive models, and you also have to know enough about the business to understand the context in which your work creates value for the company. That combination requires you to have coding skills, statistics chops, and, last but not least, business savvy. In this chapter, you’ll see the extent to which you need business acumen to be successful working in the data science field — and what you can do to bolster your business knowledge in record time.

Bridging the Business Gap

Not all data scientists work inside businesses. Some are in academia and nonprofits, and some work in scientific companies where business know-how simply isn’t relevant to their ...