What Are Citizen Data Scientists?

Citizen Data Scientists represent a new breed of business analysts – a group of individuals with diverse business responsibilities and training, who wield sophisticated analytical tools, and employ complex methods of analysis to improve business results – all without the training or assistance of data scientists or IT team members. Citizen Data Scientists are business users who leverage the knowledge and skill they have developed through professional training and business roles to navigate business intelligence and advanced analytical tools to answer business questions, identify trends and patterns and develop new competitive strategies to support business decisions.

Citizen Data Scientists work in a self-serve, easy-to-use business intelligence model wherein they can share data, produce reports and test hypotheses and theories. Citizen Data Scientists are not trained as analysts or technology experts. They come from every corner of the organization, from sales and marketing to finance, HR, production and purchasing and they use advanced data analytics to make decisions in support of their business team, division or unit. 

Can Citizen Data Scientists Improve the Quality of Business Intelligence?

When an organization integrates data sources and enables self-serve, Advanced Data Discovery and analysis, the business can cascade knowledge and skill and make it easier for every business user to complete tasks, make accurate decisions and perform with agility in a fast-paced business environment. In a self-serve business intelligence environment, every team member is empowered to find and use clear, accurate data.

The Gartner report entitled, ‘Citizen Data Science Augments Data Discovery and Simplifies Data Science,’ states that, ‘the number of Citizen Data Scientists will grow five times faster than the number of highly skilled data scientists.’

By providing these crucial self-serve analytical tools to each team member, the business ensures that every location, business unit, division and team will work with consistent, uniform, clear data to make decisions, forecast future results and plan for market entry, new products and competitive initiatives.

Citizen Data Scientists use drag and drop tools, and features like Assisted Predictive Modelling, auto-suggestion and auto-recommendations to create, share and use predictive models to get data insights and use predictive analytics to their day to day Use Cases. These tools allow for sophisticated analysis without the assistance of precious IT and analyst resources and ensure that problems are solved quickly and that the organization can identify opportunities, and optimize resources at every level.

Citizen Data Scientists can go beyond data monitoring to discover those all-important nuggets of information that will make a real difference in business success.

Giving business users the right tools and a simple way to manage and analyze data and information encourages the adoption of business intelligence and analytical tools and assures that every team member an asset to your organization.

Original Post : What Are Citizen Data Scientists and Can They Improve the Quality of Business Intelligence?