Choosing a career option in Analytics domain

In this fast growing technology environment, analytics based decision making is imperative for organizations to lead the business against competitors, socio-economic changes and increasing customer demands. However, choosing a career in analytics is also important for individuals who seek to excel in this domain. This post will help individuals who seek to start their career in analytics or in the initial years of their career.  Depending upon one’s strength and interest, a suitable field in analytics can be chosen.

There are typically four functions in analytics domain for an individual to choose from.

• Decision Science Management:

1. Responsibility: This function is involved in developing statistical models to address a particular business problem. The models so developed is evaluated after regular intervals and enhanced to suit the changing environment encompassing the business problem. Historically 70% of work involves tracking and monitoring model performance and 30% of work building models.
2. Significance: The resulting models are used for decision making in various industries such as
   1. Financial Industry: Credit card approvalwith pre-assigned credit limits, identifying credit defaulters in advance, mitigating credit cards fraud through risk scores etc.
   2. Retail Industry: Cross Selling strategy, identifying customer’s propensity to buy certain products etc.
   3. Pharmaceutical Industry: Predicting false claims, Building Sales effectiveness plan
   4. Manufacturing : The reliability of expensive components
3. Why this function: If candidate is interested in statistics and complex data processing for meaningful insights then this would be apt function. Though, this function demands command on statistics after a while the work becomes monotonous in terms of monitoring and evaluations.

• Business Analysis / Business Consulting:

1. Responsibility: This function is involved in understanding day to day business problems on a regular basis by analyzing data. The output is generally Dashboard, ppt with meaningful insights for business to take actions for the key problems at stake. The role would be more like a front end consulting profile which should have the required business knowledge and fair understanding of extensive data research.
2. Significance: The scope of this function is quite large. This function is quite important for any business to understand and manage the existing and future business challenges.  Though there are numerous data based solutions and strategies come from this function, here are few example of the typical outputs

i.      Financial Industry: Marketing strategy in terms of whom target, what to offer, when to offer

ii.      Retail Industry: Brand positioning, marketing strategy, product mix for cross sell

3. Why this function: If candidate is interested in being a domain expert and has an affinity towards consulting then this is the ideal function. Being a front end role, this requires good amount of domain knowledge along with sound interpersonal skills.

• Customer Information Management

1. Responsibility: This team is involved in setting and managing the data warehouse used for any type of data analysis. This function is the backbone of analytics as managing data in most efficient manner for access and re-use is of primary importance. The knowledge on basic ETL and Business Intelligence tools are essential for choosing this function.
2. Significance: Typically all major/minor organizations require data management solution and hence this function is not limited to any particular industry but cater a broad spectrum of industries starting from energy, manufacturing, technology, finance, retail, pharmaceutical and many more.
3. Why this function: If candidate has inclination towards coding and has capability to debug day to day data problems then this is an apt function. This would also expose the candidate to various types of database management like Oracle, Mainframe, Big Data etc. which needs patience and willingness to learn new concepts.

• Management Information System

1. Responsibility:  This function is very critical to run smooth business in ever changing environments to take corrective actions. The team is involved in management dashboard building, providing critical information to management on a regular basis.
2. Significance: Without this function, management is helpless to assess what’s going in and around the business. The requirement for this role can be seen across all industries and hence is always in demand in the job market.
3. Why this function: If candidate is interested in coding along with an intention to develop business skills, this role will be suitable for such candidates. Thought work will be routine but the requirement in this function is always in demand.

This article has been contributed by RASjobs.com team, a portal dedicated for the career pursuits and job search for Risk, Analytics and Security domain. You can view many articles, search jobs and their career management service at RASjobs.com