Top 10 Reasons Why Businesses Need Citizen Data Scientists

Who are citizen data scientists?

Citizen data scientists are business users who leverage easy to use business intelligence solutions to guide their decisions without relying on IT.  Following are the top 10 reasons why every business should have them.

1. Because truly qualified data scientists are in short supply. What we mean by ‘truly’ is not only their technical skills, but also their ability to grasp business context. This is a rare but necessary combination data scientists can use to proactively probe for insights over and above requests made by business leaders.
2. Data Scientists are a very expensive hire. Demand outstrips supply, actionable insights produced by data scientists are now at the core of organizational success. Going by today’s estimates, hiring a data scientist can set you back by as much as $113,000.
3. Even with ninja skills, efficiency is not guaranteed. That’s mostly because data wrangling or preparing data through cleansing and organizing which is the first step for extracting insights is extremely laborious. It can take up 80% of the work of data scientists.
4. The cost of hiring data scientists outweighs the benefits. What’s the point in paying top dollar for data scientists when data wrangling roadblocks stretch insights discovery timelines by weeks and months? Business leaders need insights for immediate wins.
5. Creating citizen data scientists is a practical solution. Self-Service BI tools are paving the way for businesses to create citizen data scientists. These tools help business users to use big data analytics to their advantage without having to learn any technical skills.
6. Citizen data scientists can be produced instantly. Organisations don’t have to look beyond their existing talent pool. Big data vendors are now creating intuitive interfaces so business users can instantly consume insights as often as possible without any help from IT.
7. It’s a path towards creating a data driven culture. By nurturing citizen data scientists, you will be creating a culture for making informed decisions, thus maximizing your customer wins. Fast and easy access to data allows business to reap the merits of data democratization.
8. You can do it without the need for special infrastructure or training. Best in class tools like DataScout are hosted in the cloud, eliminating the need for any special software installation or hardware requirement. Giving birth to citizen data scientists is as easy as signing in with credentials and operating the mouse.
9. It’s about collaboration. The biggest advantage of having a bunch of citizen data scientists is that business intelligence tools like DataScout which are worth their salt have shareable dashboards. This encourages teams to discuss and debate about the way forward when they discover interesting insights.
10. Data scientists can focus on delivering their best. Since Self-Service BI tools automatically clean and organize data, thus allowing data scientists to put all of their energies towards unearthing hidden correlations and achieving organizational excellence.