Written by Jennifer Doddy
The Premier League football clubs use performance data for their players and Manchester City FC have released this data for every Premier League match during the 2011/12 season, which makes interesting reading. For instance, David Silva has had 16 assists, the joint highest amount in the Premier League this season.
The use of analytics in Sports shows how data analysis is becoming pervasive across every industry sector and has many benefits for all types of businesses, if used properly.
The Career of a Data Analyst is changing.
Forbes recently had an article on how data analytics and business intelligence is a huge job growth area and how more and more businesses are using data analytics to understand their customers. They discussed how employers are looking for analysts from beyond the traditional backgrounds of computer science, statistics, economics etc and that it is no longer the exclusive province of IT.
Recruiting in the Data Analyst space over the last 18 months, this is a trend that we are continuing to see evolve. Companies in Dublin are looking for analysts with the imagination, communication skills and tools to take advantage of the zettabytes of data their systems are starting to produce.
Reports and dashboards are no longer enough. The newly required skills include creativity, innovation, as well as the mathematical and more traditional analytical skills. Companies are now looking for the Data Analyst to understand and interpret the data. They want them working with the leadership teams in partnership to affect key strategic decisions within organisations.
I recently met a senior analyst who said his main strength was “visualisation”. This ability to present the findings in a visual way, allows managers across the business to “see” the data and execute this in a real time.
“Visualisation” is one of the key skills elite sports stars use to imagine winning. It is now a vital part of a Data Analyst skills repertoire.
As an Analyst is this something you have seen? How do you think analysts are changing?
