Dive Brief:
- Organizations may already possess the talent needed to extract additional value from the data they collect, according to a report released last week by Forrester.
- Many employees now use analytics in their jobs, even if data science is not their full-time role. This includes business analysts and professionals in finance, marketing and engineering departments, the tech research and advisory firm said.
- AI-enabled tools that automate away the more complicated aspects of data science, combined with machine learning algorithms and low-code applications give these professionals, dubbed “citizen data scientists” by Forrester, the ability to produce sophisticated business insights and predictive models.
Dive Insight:
Demand for data skills continues to outstrip the supply of available talent. As companies compete for IT workers against a backdrop of historically low unemployment, identifying previously untapped analytics capabilities within an organization can provide relief.
Individuals with knowledge of correlation, statistical reasoning and regression analysis may be found in a variety of non-data science roles.
With additional training and guidance, workers with these skills can begin by collecting and preprocessing data. From there, they can move on to more complex functions, such as identifying trends, patterns and anomalies in datasets and — with help from automated machine learning — uncover otherwise hidden insights with predictive value.
Accessing these skills requires a systematic approach as well as technological assets, according to Forrester.
Deploying low-code tools with ML and AI capabilities can be risky without clear governance and process guardrails to ensure accuracy. Standardizing data across the organization to ensure there is consistency in results is also important, the report said.
Talent-strapped organizations can find analytics skills among entry-level job applicants, too, even among candidates without traditional technologist resumes. A recent study by Handshake found that 4 in 5 non-tech majors graduating in the class of 2023 possessed skills related to data analytics and IT systems.
