Win with Advanced Business Analytics: Creating Business Value from Your Data

DATA SCIENCE BECOMES A SPECIALIZED DEPARTMENT

Although we expect that analytical techniques will become more available to nonanalysts across the enterprise, we also see the future of analytics being one where specialized departments are created to address the needs of data science in the organization. In the current state, analytical professionals are typically fragmented across the enterprise, often in different departments with labels such as business intelligence, marketing analytics, customer research, web analytics, CRM analytics, and so forth. Furthermore, most companies have very few, if any, true data science professionals. We expect most companies will move to centralize these functions under an umbrella analytics and data science department. The model for some companies may be to have analytics as a formal, centralized shared service, and for others, as a center of excellence where analytical professionals are kept close to the departments they serve, yet have accountability and participate in an analytics center of excellence. Regardless, the most successful companies of the future will recognize and prioritize the importance of data science and related analytics professionals, making it a formal business function in the same way that it is commonplace in many companies today to have such departments as HR, marketing, service, technology, and finance.