Data Analytics Seminar

There are lots of openings for MBAs in Data Analytics. This was the message that came out strongly in a seminar on the subject where I was the odd man out. Meaning, I was the academician among industry speakers. This was held at Narsee Monjee Institute's Hyderabad campus. I spoke about marketing analytics by virtue of my having written the marketing research book, and having taught the subject.

There was an interesting presentation on Banking and its uses for analytics, particular emphasis being fraud prevention by looking at patterns of spending or other behaviors. There was another on Big Data. That reminds me of a joke I read elsewhere that a person wanted to do a course on Analytics techniques, AND on Big Data, thinking that Big Data was a software package for analytics. Anyway,  what I gathered is that Big Data is all data, text or graphics or Facebook Likes or whatever, about an entity that you are tracking-like you and me. Gathering it is easier sometimes than figuring out how to use it. We frequently have this problem with all types of data.

Anyway, one sidelight was that a speaker likened the Data Analyst to a Sherlock Holmes on a murder trail, because you are trying to find meaning in it, by trying out various things, or trying to prove a hypothesis. There was some discussion about use of the cloud by small and large companies, and of applications for cricket players and teams, and techniques like Camera-based reviews.

All in all, an interesting 3 hours, compered and organised very well by the students.