How Business Schools Are Teaching Big Data Analytics
Big data analytics is now an essential management skill. According to a forecast by McKinsey & Company, the management consultancy, the US will this year experience a shortage of 1.5 million managers and analysts who can use big data to make effective decisions.
The concept has become a key part of the leading business school’s curriculum, such as London’s Imperial College Business School, which takes a novel approach to data science education.
The school launched a Data Observatory which helps data scientists and consumers of data science visualize and communicate their findings, which propels research. “The Data Observatory is thus a venue for both making and sharing discoveries,” says Mark Kennedy, director of Imperial Business Analytics, which aims to bring data science research closer to business.
Visually, the Observatory takes the form of a digital tapestry of 64 screens, offering 313-degree views. Imperial believes it’s the biggest in Europe.
Full-time MBA students have joined Data Sparks, Imperial’s big data consultancy projects, many of which have led to visualizations in the Observatory. The students use data from companies, not-for-profits, or government agencies to work on difficult but practical problems. They work alongside students from business analytics courses and, increasingly, other parts of Imperial College, such as engineering, computing, and medicine.
Last year, the MBA projects were focused on law, consulting, and healthcare. One example was a project showing the spread of contagious diseases around the world, which was able to answer the question: “What country’s citizens are most likely to be involved in the global spread of contagious disease?”
Mark says: “The analysis showed how and why diseases can spread, thus suggesting ways to detect and forestall potential epidemics.”
Imperial also runs a new short course called ‘data artistry’, which helps people know not only when they are looking at patterns that matter, but also how to put across their findings in a way that moves people. “Profound findings are of no use if nobody can understand them,” says Mark.
The ability to both understand, communicate, and act upon such findings is now a coveted skill in an economy that is becoming increasingly digitized.
“Data has entered into every industry and business function, and is now an important factor of production, sales and marketing, HR, supply chain, and finance,” says Francesco Daveri, MBA director at the . “The use of big data will become a base for competition and growth for every firm.”
The Italian business school has courses in big data marketing, the programming language Python, and digital business transformation.
Francesco says SQL, another coding language, is necessary for analytics roles, and so is an understanding of Google Analytics.
