There Is Only So Much You Can Do with a Spreadsheet
Microsoft Excel is truly one of the most useful applications ever developed. I love Excel and apparently many others do considering how widely used it is. However, as a data science professional, it boggles my mind to see some of the advanced analyses, critical projects, and laborious data shaping that business analysts force through Excel. You can ask a lot from the tool but at some point you really need to expand your toolset to make the most of your valuable data. IBM SPSS Modeler is a drag and drop data science workbench that business analysts can use to easily shape, analyze, and model their data—without the limitations of spreadsheets and without the need for tedious coding.
The First Essential Step Toward Successful Predictive Analytics is Knowing Your Business
Business domain knowledge is often crowded out by the incessant drumbeat of data science tools and methods e.g., Python, Deep Learning. However, the secret that most companies are unaware of is that estimates show that only ~20% of data science and machine learning projects actually succeed. There are many good reasons for this but a top factor is the lack of understanding of how a model should be defined to represent the business problem and how the output will be incorporated into the daily business workflow. To successfully deploy models and algorithms, the business objectives need to be clear and a solution must be compatible with an organization’s workstream. Business analysts know how their organizations function and are well-positioned to make this happen.
The Second Step is to Know Your Data
In reality, your organization is not likely to get anywhere with predictive analytics unless it knows and understands its data. Yes, there are solutions that can ingest massive amounts of data and automatically identify useful patterns and variance, but successful projects begin with a deep understanding of not just the available data but also of the missing data needed to complete the project. Business analysts know their organization’s data and how it can be applied to the business challenge. What they need is a more advanced tool like Modeler to get the most out of this knowledge.
To help business analysts with this opportunity, eCapital produced a 9-Module IBM SPSS Modeler on-demand training series designed specifically for business analysts who need to level up their tools and use their knowledge of their business and the data to have a greater impact on the business.
It’s a great time to be an analyst. Data are now strategic assets and it’s time to stand out among your peers and DO MORE with your data by starting your IBM SPSS Modeler training today!
