The world moves at great speed and companies are called to keep pace. Data science is the discipline that makes figures and algorithms an input to know the audience, innovate and optimize expenses.
What should companies do to get to know their customers better? What are the numbers provided by social networks and websites used for? Can a shopping strip become a source of information? Data science is capable of answering these and other questions related to the analysis of information as an input for making decisions.
This science unites disciplines that have been developed decades ago with new ways of reading the environment. It takes knowledge and techniques from mathematics, including statistics, systems engineering, and business intelligence to support data analysis with more advanced algorithms such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning , and Big Data . This multidisciplinary perspective breaks the scheme that the figures are only hard and pure data that concern certain areas of the company, to make them soft, useful and easy to interpret.
According to Roberto Carlos Hincapié Reyes, PhD in engineering and dean of the School of Engineering at the Pontifical Bolivarian University, data science “allows us to analyze combinations of a large amount of information and find patterns and relationships that are not simply visible.” . Data science is what makes it possible to extract new data and information from that knowledge so that companies make decisions based on them.”
In organizations, data science has a very broad field of application that focuses on going beyond a correlation to find a causality. To understand it better, a data scientist has the training and criteria to understand and explain, for example, why when the dollar rises, the price of oil falls and vice versa or why if someone buys a few cans of beer, cheese and ham matured, you may be interested in acquiring a state-of-the-art television to watch a good soccer game. In both cases, the figures allow us to understand behaviors derived from them.
Why should companies add a data scientist to their workforce?
- To have greater financial efficiency, optimize resources and find new investment alternatives.
- Because it allows us to understand that the data historically stored in an organization, more than files, is an intangible that can become a monetizable value.
- It allows us to get to know and get closer to customers, offer them solutions tailored to their tastes and needs. This represents higher income and loyalty.
- To turn data into clear and understandable information for an organization.
- It is essential to identify consumer habits and trends and create strategies that respond to them.
The world has understood that the functions of the data scientist can write a before and after in organizations. The challenge for those who are attracted to this discipline is to train not only in fundamental areas, that is, mathematics, algorithms, computing and data processing, but also in humanism, as an ethical call.
Source: Roberto Caros Hincapié Reyes.
Electronic Engineer, PhD in Engineering
Dean of the Engineering School of the Pontifical Bolivarian University
