‘Big Data’ lessons from industry bigwigs at Deakin University
View(s):Deakin University’s Master of Business Analytics students will learn about ‘big data’ from none other than the industry heavyweights of the likes of Deloitte, Ernst & Young, IBM, SAS and Microsoft. Specialist data analysis staff from these companies will deliver lessons in Deakin classrooms to teach students how make sense of data for their future employers so as to further their business visions.
Popularly called ‘big data’ in the technocratic circles, what it refers to are the masses of data that is now created, collected and stored with the help of recent technological advance. Deakin’s Head of the School of Information Systems Professor Dineli Mather quotes IBM’s assessment of an estimated 2.5m quintillion bytes of data that gets created each day of which 90% available has been produced in just the last two years.
Organisations realised analysing this data could help in business streamlining and further strategising business goals. Simple data could now be transformed into valuable information – an indispensable business asset – an asset with the potential to support and facilitate sound business decisions to get ahead of competition.
Whilst analytics has been around for a long time, explains Professor Mather, it was only in 2008 that momentum started to build exponentially; triggered by Thomas Davenport’s book Competing with Analytics published the same year. It was then that Data Analysts were brought out from their nondescript work-stations and given their pride of place in the frontier role of business decision-making.
However, analysing data isn’t the be all and end all of Analytics. The more important questions for businesses to ask are: why is the data being collected, what will be done with it, and how will it be used to provide in-depth understanding so as to improve operational and strategic performance of organisations. The answers to these questions lie in the integrating and aligning data collection and analytics with the organisation’s strategic aims. ‘And that is what makes the Deakin’s Master of Business Analytics course different to others that are around,’ says Professor Mather.
The course been specifically designed with working students in mind. Course design involved examining the entire value chain of business analytics – the chain that begins with the information and how that is collected including studying data from text analytics and social media, followed by investigating how it all links to business processes, and then how to apply the knowledge culled from the analysis to add value to the business.
‘We have partners and directors from top consulting firms to actually teach in the program,’ Professor Mather says. All of Deakin’s units have a practice element, either through a case study presented by industry, or the industry partner delivers a module for two to three weeks, or they run a role-play into real case studies wherein students will compete to come up with the best solution as judged by the company involved.
Business Analytics might be the next big step in an emerging professional area that promises challenge, excitement and reward.
If you would like to find out more about the Deakin University and what is on offer, meet Deakin University representative at Edlocate (79/5 Horton Place, Colombo 7) on 16th July 2013. Contact Edlocate for appointments on 011- 5219129 or 011 5235148.
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