Described in Harvard Business Review as the “sexiest job of the 21st century“, a data scientist is an analytical specialist who can give you greater insight into your commercial operations.
But, what exactly does a data scientist do and how can you decide whether it’s worth investing in one? Here, we’ll give you all the answers.
What is a data scientist and how can they support my business?
By both answering the questions you pose, and telling you what questions you should be asking to optimise your operations, data scientists can tell you how far you’ve come and where you need to be.
Essentially, their work is about deriving meaning from complicated sets of numbers, and interpreting these trends in a way that can aid corporate decision-making.
A data scientist can have a positive impact on a whole variety of your corporate processes, including:
- Location planning
- Insight gathering
- Property management
- Financial planning
- Marketing
- Corporate governance
But, as the job requires a rare combination of skills, data scientists’ services come at a premium. According to Udacity, these are just the basic number crunching credentials data scientists are supposed to have a working knowledge of:
- Analytical tools
- Statistical analysis techniques
- Machine learning
- Multivariable calculus and linear algebra
- Data munging
- Data visualisation and communication
- Software engineering
- Scientific techniques
Despite all these skills, data scientists are only human. This means they have the capacity to make mistakes, miss vital trends or fall behind in terms of data processing methodology.
But, do I really need a data scientist?
The short answer is “no”. You need their expertise and capabilities, but not their salary on your payroll.
So, how do you get the best of both worlds? Well, new location intelligence software might just put data scientists out of a job.
Location intelligence software is now so advanced, it enables everyone from location planners and insight staff to financial executives and CEOs to derive the information needed to tailor business activities to real-world trends.
A location intelligence platform is a place to store and access all your business data at once. But, intuitive versions of this software have now been set up in such away that you can carry out advanced calculations involving hundreds of data sets at the click of a mouse.
This enables you to carry out tasks including:
- Find out why one store performs better than another
- Figure out why a competitor has achieved greater profitability in a certain area
- Find locations that match the attributes of your top-performing stores
- Create marketing personas and targeted marketing campaigns
- Manage a commercial property portfolio
Data scientists aren’t appealing in and of themselves. It’s the insights they can give you that are so compelling. And, with all of this now achievable using advanced location intelligence software like Periscope®, there’s no need to go out searching for that person with the illusive (and expensive) skill set.
Discover how Periscope® can provide your company with the data-driven insights you need to optimise profitability.