Data Analytics - The Next Big Career Option for Engineers

 

In today’s cut-throat competition, it is increasingly becoming important for organizations to continuously up their business performance, stay abreast of the latest industry happenings, respond quickly to emerging market trends and innovate ways to enhance their productivity if they want to sustain themselves and remain profitable in the competitive business world. One of the leading ways for organizations to stay ahead of the curve is to harness seemingly unfathomable Big Data in order to uncover hidden trends, patterns and correlations that can be used to draw logical conclusions which, in turn, can enable companies to make informed business decisions and help them improve and optimize their revenues, operational efficiency, regulatory compliance, marketing strategies and customer service initiatives.

What is Data Analytics?

Also known as Data Analysis, Data Analytics is a vast domain that focuses on the transformation of humongous data sets into meaningful information that can be used to drive strategic business decisions and actions. The elaborate process leverages exploratory data analysis (EDA) and confirmatory data analysis (CDA) along with a host of qualitative and quantitative techniques to analyse, profile, cleanse, transform and model data with the aid of specialized systems and analytics software, including statistical & predictive modelling tools, machine learning algorithms and Python Scikit Learn /Scala/R/SQL/SAS programming languages.

Extensively used in B2C companies, the rapidly developing and broad field emphasizes on the study of a variety of data that is oriented to customers, business processes, market economics etc. Both historical and real-time data are extracted and categorised to unearth and analyse behavioural data that sheds light upon trends associated with human interactions such as customer preferences, spend & usage patterns, community interests etc. Data related to business processes and market economics are also examined to identify purchasing patterns and to align one’s business strategies and priorities according to these trends.

Why is Data Analytics a Desirable Career for Engineers?

As an Engineer, Data Analytics can be a path-breaking career move for you as it is one of the most sought after, high paying and fastest growing fields in the world today with a steady increase in the number of job opportunities that prevail in this domain. Depending upon your aptitude and interest, you can choose to venture into Big Data Analytics or Big Data Engineering. While the former requires you to facilitate the process of data analysis by extracting large amounts of structured and unstructured data from different source systems followed with their integration, assembling, cleansing and subsequent structuring into common data set formats that can be loaded into individual analytics applications, the latter entails the design and deployment of systems that can make the prepared data sets readily available for various analysis purposes and for use in internal applications.

According to Srikanth Velamakanni, Group Chief Executive of Fractal Analytics - India’s second largest analytics firm, the analytics market is poised for phenomenal growth in the upcoming years and will evolve to at least one-third of the global IT market from the current one-tenth. In another study by the McKinsey Global Institute, it has been estimated that by 2018, the US alone will be short of approximately 190,000 data scientists and 1.5 million managers and analysts who have the ability to decode and utilize Big Data to aid the decision-making process of their organizations.

With the demand for skilled data analysts far surpassing the availability of trained professionals, there is always a dearth of qualified Data Engineers and Data Analysts who can assist businesses in exploiting Big Data to their advantage. A career in this exciting field can imply immense job satisfaction for Engineers as their Big Data solutions have the potential to exhibit a far-reaching impact on an organization’s overall business goals and objectives and in addressing real world business problems. The ability to wear many hats such as those of a Data Analyst, Data Scientist, Big Data Engineer, Business Intelligence Officer etc. and the added advantage of being able to earn handsomely and gain enterprise-level exposure during one’s day-to-day interactions with various business units, departments and functions further add up to make data analytics a dream career path for Engineers. As Jeanne Harris, former Global Managing Director of Information Technology Research at the Accenture Institute for High Performance in Chicago aptly sums its relevance saying, “Data is useless without the skill to analyze it.”

How Can MITSkills Help You Make a Foray Into Data Analytics?

Since Data Analytics is a knowledge intensive field, one needs adequate exposure to Big Data technologies, data architecture and essential programming languages along with a host of other tools and skill sets in order to make a successful career in this niche space that is brimming with endless opportunities and job prospects. A reputed technical training institute like MITSkills can help you take the quantum leap with its futuristic course named Advanced PGP in Data Analytics that augments your awareness and understanding of diverse topics like Data Mining, Visualization Techniques, Predictive Modelling, Basics of SQL and Statistics. Flexible enough to be pursued during the weekdays or on weekends, the comprehensive course is designed by industry veterans to help you master the concept of Big Data and cater to the data analysis needs of industries as diverse as IT, Manufacturing, Professional/Scientific/Technical Services, Consulting, BFSI, Telecom, Retail Trade etc.