Who are data scientists and what do they do?
In short, data scientists are professionals whose job is to collect, analyse and interpret vast quantities of data. This sort of work is a mixture of various traditional roles (such as statistician, mathematician, scientist, analyst, programmer, and IT specialist) and operates on the latest analytics technologies, like predictive modelling, deep learning artificial intelligence, and machine learning.
What can a data scientist do to help in your business’s growth?
A qualified data scientist performs various actions that can be helpful for your business. Here are some of the most common ones:
Identify opportunities
During the data analysis, data scientists test the current analytics systems, which enables them to determine ways to improve them and get more value from the gathered data. It’s a simple interplay – the more thorough the analysis, the clearer the picture of the company’s situation and its opportunities to grow.
Spot goal-defining trends
A deep dive into Big Data can define current trends on the market and show which aspects of the business should be addressed to utilise those trends and in turn help increase the company’s profitability.
Enhance user experience
User experience (or UX) is one of the key factors in successful e-commerce. With the use of the right tools, a data scientist can determine the best target audience and designate changes to the website that will make it more suited for the target demographic’s behaviour and needs.
Point out the most important issues
A skilled data analyst can process raw data into more digestible form (e.g., by using data visualisation) that can illustrate the most pressing business that require immediate action. This allows you to focus on the most lacking aspects of your business and deal with them effectively.
Provide solid evidence to back up decisions
Hard data is the best way to mitigate risk by picking up the most solid, data-driven options when it comes to business decisions. Data scientists can provide insights into the current state of the market and answer questions about its possible futures.
Predict possible outcomes of business actions
The aforementioned predictive models and data visualisations enable data analysts to predict possible outcomes of current business actions and point out new ones that give the best prognosis for the foreseeable future.
Create algorithms for more efficient recruitment
Through programming languages and machine learning techniques, a skilled data scientist can create algorithms that can make scouting for new talents way easier. From analysing the CV sent your way, to combing through the vast depths of social media – a tightly knitted algorithm can pick the best candidates to bolster your company’s manpower.
Big Data in Small Business
Although it might seem that data-driven solutions are dedicated to large companies and organisations, many data scientists specialise in working with the SMB part of the market. So being small doesn’t mean you can’t manage data in the same way a big corporation would. Data science is especially helpful for start-ups and rapidly growing businesses.
With a dose of computer science and a lot of statistical analysis, successful data scientists can transform seemingly useless bits of data into measurable foundations for business growth. Properly processed raw data can provide you with hindsight, insight, and even foresight for your actions and pick the most promising options while eliminating bad practices.
Proper data management will also keep all the most important information nice and clean. This is especially crucial when it comes to financial data in e-commerce. Thanks to the help of a data scientist you’ll know exactly how much you spend on, e.g., advertisement. Plus, you’ll be able to manage all of your business’s expenses from one place as data science programs can be integrated with tools such as Excel, providing easily readable statistics and summaries.
Another significant factor that’s often overlooked in small businesses is inventory management. Even if you’re small, you’d need a proper inventory management strategy and a clean inventory record. Data scientists can help you with that, thus eliminating the risk and unnecessary expenses tied to over/under ordering or going out of stock.
Data science and boosting business – a brief summary
Complex data doesn’t have to be scary and hard to read – with the right set of technical skills, it can be transformed into something much more practical and easy to understand. And that’s what a data scientist can do for you. Of course, it’s a very rough simplification of what this type of specialist can do – data scientist roles by far exceed that. To sum it all up, you can say that through in-depth data analyses, a data scientist can identify the best course of action to ensure business growth and more efficient ways of managing it.
Most data scientists are skilled in many fields, e.g., computer science, statistics, mathematics, and can provide you with a wide range of services. Such specialists can be found at Silicon Cities – we employ some of the best Australian data scientists that can help you sustain and grow your business. Contact us today and learn what we can do for you.