Succeeding with data science takes a holistic approach

From large enterprises to small businesses, nearly every organization recognizes the benefits they can achieve with data science. Whether looking for patterns in financial transactions to better detect fraud, mining social media posts for customer sentiments or using telecommunications data to improve cell phone networks, business leaders realize their data holds the key to competitive advantage.

However, one of the biggest challenges businesses face is finding the right way to transform their mountains of data into insights and then into action. Data science is the discipline by which organizations can attain unprecedented competitive advantage. Comprising capabilities such as statistics, mathematics, predictive analytics and machine learning, data science can speed analysis and time to insight by empowering users to identify patterns, trends and anomalies in extremely large datasets.

With all of the advantages data science has to offer, it’s no surprise that many organizations are eager to get started. But before diving in, every business should consider asking some basic questions first:

• What business goals do you want to achieve? You may want to boost operational efficiency, improve marketing campaign performance or predict customer churn, but you need to have an objective.
• How will you manage all of that data? For data science to inform and guide your business, you have to start with trusted data that is accessible and governed for privacy, compliance and other regulations.
• What capabilities will you need? Data science is not one size fits all. Different teams with different skillsets require unique capabilities to effectively collaborate and make a difference.
• How will you deliver insights enterprise-wide? You will need a plan for integrating analytic results into business processes to drive decisions at the point of impact.

Once you’ve defined your business goals, make sure you also understand the entire data lifecycle and how you will deliver insights across your organization. Taking this holistic approach to analytics and data science will be an important step in addressing technical challenges and reaching your business goals.

Get new insights from IBM and Gartner

"Data Science Strategies," an on-demand webinar featuring experts from Gartner and IBM, answers many of your questions about data science. Whether you are just getting started or are well underway, Svetlana Sicular, Vice President of Data Science Research at Gartner, and Nancy Hensley, Director of Analytics Offering Management at IBM, offer valuable advice, based on the latest research and technology advances, to help you extract maximum value from data science. Watch the webinar now.

Source: IBM Analytics