Data Science, Efficiency improvement, Other

The Ascent Of Citizen Data Scientists: Empower Your Analysts

Ramesh Gurajapu

As technology advances, more and more businesses have begun adopting AI and data-based methods to analyze mountains of data to drive better business decisions. The seemingly endless amount of data available to businesses is only valuable if someone on their team understands how to find insights and manipulate the data to find answers to business questions. This vital team member is typically a data scientist, an expert in advanced analytics and data management with technical skills to solve complex business problems.  But when an organization uses data for their operations without a data scientist, who assists in data science efforts? Citizen data scientists.

What is a Citizen Data Scientist?

Companies who utilize data science or who are interested in data science should be the first in line to want to know about the term “citizen data scientist”.  Ascribed to Gartner’s director and BI industry expert Alexander Linden, citizen data scientists can “bridge the gap between mainstream self-service analytics by business users and the advanced analytics techniques of data scientists.” In simpler terms:

A citizen data scientist is a person whose primary job function is outside the field of statistics and analytics, but who can perform both simple and relatively sophisticated analytical tasks that would previously have required more expertise.

Why Citizen Data Scientists Matter

As stated earlier, data science and AI technology continuously prove to be a prevailing differentiator across industries. With this, data and analytics software vendors are making simplification a top priority by creating and implementing the automation of various data science tasks such as data integration and model building.

Linden believes, “The key to simplicity is the automation of tasks that are repetitive, manual intensive, and don’t require deep data science expertise.” This increase in automation makes it easier for companies to empower business users or analysts to take on certain data science tasks, improving productivity and efficiency.

Further clarifying the concept, Research Director at Gartner, Joao Tapadinhas, declares:

“Equipped with the proper tools, [citizen data scientists] can perform intricate diagnostic analysis and create models that leverage predictive or prescriptive analytics. This enables them to go beyond the analytics reach of regular business users into analytics processes with greater depth and breadth.”

You may be asking yourself “Why don’t organizations just hire data scientists? Why go through the trouble of training business analysts to become citizen data scientists?”  Data scientists are commonly referred to as “unicorns” because they are incredibly skilled and short in supply. Currently, the ability to hire data scientists is only in reach for very large companies or governments with the financial resources necessary.

Through the simplification and automation of data and analytics softwares, data science is not so unattainable anymore. Companies can now empower their business analysts to perform several data science tasks, opening the door to increased productivity, efficiency, and insights.

How NEMESIS Can Help

NEMESIS empowers analysts to build customized models without employing technical help. We give your analysts the tools to transform into citizen data scientists. NEMESIS’s Intelligent Data Orchestration (IDO) Module, acts as the interim data source allowing seamless aggregation of both internal and external data with a few clicks, generating alternate signal sets to feed to models.

NEMESIS has fast model building capabilities and the embedded machine learning capabilities, providing an efficient and flexible approach to cross connect risk and fraud schemes using various derived signals – discovering anomalies, risk and fraud suspects from various perspectives > beyond a single view – putting business analysts with business knowledge in control.

  • Reduced time in data prep: Any data scientist would attest that data preparation and cleansing accounts for almost 75% of their time. NEMESIS automates this process, allowing analysts to focus on their core job functions.
  • Increased visibility and better control: Analysts can tailor data, results, and key findings with customizable dashboards. Let NEMESIS do the dirty work of technical maneuvering to convey concise and effective messages to different management levels.
  • Automated learning: A self-learning solution that recommends the optimal model for your unique needs, helping you to stay on top of new types of fraud or risks. NEMESIS understands you have to think like a fraudster, to beat a fraudster.
  • Accelerated remedial action: NEMESIS’s integrated case management system pairs the most qualified researchers with suspicious cases immediately. NEMESIS leads faster resolution and the most efficient road to alleviate bottlenecks.
Ramesh Gurajapu