Business analytics: meeting the need for talent
Finding his niche in neuroscience near the end of his sophomore year dispatched the indecision and turmoil Jonathan Briganti had felt — “every path seemed to call to me” — and gave him an academic goal at Virginia Tech.
When he discovered business analytics while competing in a campus hackathon, he acquired a career focus. Briganti expects to graduate this spring and join Pamplin’s master’s program in business analytics in the fall.
Business analytics is the process of using scientific techniques and technologies to extract useful information from raw data to make business decisions. Pamplin’s program would make him more proficient in both data analytics and business subjects, says Briganti, who became CEO of a healthcare tech startup he and others launched in the wake of the hackathon.
The degree, he adds, will also position him well to pursue other passions that might emerge through the course of a career and lifetime.
Also starting the program this fall is Angelica Melvin (PSYC ’13), who is seeking knowledge and skills to forge a new career she hopes will involve data analytics at a community-oriented business.
Growing up in an “impoverished, isolated Appalachian community, where supporting local business was emphasized,” Melvin recalls learning the value of a strong work ethic and a job well done from various family members. “I worked alongside my mom in her restaurant after school. Later, I worked in a cousin’s auto body shop.”
Currently an administrative assistant on campus, Melvin was previously a sales manager at Goodwill. “Working at a store that was frequented by people of disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds,” she says, “helped me refocus my career goals.”
Robert Lorence spent nearly three years as an engineering undergraduate and transferred colleges twice before arriving at Virginia Tech. Now a senior in economics, he is also enrolled in the business analytics program’s accelerated track, which lets students earn graduate-course credit while completing a bachelor’s degree.
“I felt absolutely positive if I got in this program I would have a faster success trajectory professionally,” says Lorence.
“Having data analytics skills, along with my grounding in engineering and economics, will allow me to pivot quickly and have a really exciting career.”
Briganti, Melvin, and Lorence can expect sunny job prospects when they graduate. “There’s a significant shortage of talent in the data and business analytics arena,” says Linda Oldham, executive director of Pamplin’s Center for Business Intelligence and Analytics (CBIA), which runs the one-year graduate program.
The skills shortage is a popular topic of trade journals, industry reports, and executive conferences.
Analytics and data science programs have multiplied (U.S. universities now offer more than 100), but “they can’t crank out enough sufficiently trained people to meet the demand,” says Oldham, citing Deloitte’s Analytics Trends 2016 report.
Especially sought are those with knowledge and skills to manage and interpret data for business decision making — “people who can identify, frame, and solve problems that will also bring high returns on investment,” Oldham says. “Corporations tell me they lack analytics talent with the ability to use the data to build a business case.”
Pamplin’s business analytics concentration gives students a solid education in both data analytics and business, she says. “This is how our master’s program is dramatically different from analytics programs in engineering, computer science, and statistics.”
The program is “a great way for students with virtually any undergraduate degree to gain skills that are in high demand,” says business information technology professor Cliff Ragsdale, who serves as CBIA’s academic director. “Our immersive, hands-on curriculum trains students to use the tools of analytics to deliver effective solutions to real-world business problems.
