I got 562 likes on my Facebook posts.
I have 102K followers on Twitter.
I went to this mall 26 times this year.
I have received Rs. 1084 cashback on Amazon in the past six months.
You must be hearing similar statements from people these days. Whether you have noticed or not, people are including numbers, or data in other words, in their daily conversations. Just heading over the app gives you an idea of what activities you performed using your smartphone and various other interesting insights. We can say that the world is getting more data-driven these days. Businesses are collecting data and investing in data strategies to cope with the present-day marketing dynamics and stay ahead of the competition. They are using the power of data analytics to make more informed decisions and make their business profitable.
Data analytics is not a new concept entirely. Given the high computational power of our systems, analyzing a massive amount of data is now feasible and this is the reason data analytics has gained high popularity in recent times. Professionals are more interested in starting a data career today rather than the traditional software development career path. In fact, they are seeking Data analytics for beginners course to learn the ABCs of this domain and gain job-ready skills.
Here is a complete beginner’s guide to data analytics and how can you start a promising career in this field.
An Introduction to Data Analytics
Data analytics is the process of unearthing hidden trends and correlations by analyzing raw data collected from various sources. Businesses can collect data from a variety of sources like social media, electronic equipment, sensors, market records, sales records, web traffic, and so on. Such data can be in a structured or unstructured format. This raw data is of no use to the organizations until it is analyzed and meaningful insights are found from it. Through data analytics, companies are able to reveal trends and patterns that would otherwise go unnoticed.
Here is how the data analytics process is followed in organizations:
- The data is first collected from disparate sources and stored in warehouses.
- As the raw data can contain duplicate, corrupt, or redundant values, it is necessary to clean data and remove all such errors.
- Next, the data is converted into a usable format so that it can be taken up for analysis.
- Now data analysis is performed, which usually falls under four categories – descriptive analytics, diagnostic analytics, predictive analytics, and prescriptive analytics.
In the above process, we mentioned the four types of data analytics. Here is a brief description of each of them so that you get some understanding of the concepts.
Descriptive analytics – This analysis is conducted to identify what has happened over the past till date. A business can use descriptive analytics to understand how fare they performed based on certain performance metrics.
Diagnostic analytics – This type of analysis answers why some events took place. It takes the conclusions from descriptive analytics and tries to find out what was the cause of those outcomes.
Predictive analytics – As the name suggests, it is conducted to predict the outcome of a certain event in the near term. For example, looking at the current trends, a company can predict the number of sales for a given quarter.
Prescriptive analytics – This analysis helps in suggesting the future course of action based on the conclusions drawn from the above kinds of analytics. Given the current scenario, it is used to determine the best possible steps to take.
A Career in Data Analytics
Today, data analytics has become one of the most sought-after career domains. If surveys are to be believed, the global data analytics market, which stood at USD 49 billion in 2019, is expected to be worth USD 77.6 billion in 2023, growing at a CAGR of a whopping 30 percent. In line with this trend, the demand for professionals who are skilled in data analytics is growing significantly. Data-related jobs like data scientists, data analysts, data engineers, and machine learning engineers are in high demand and most of them command data analysis proficiency.
As far as the salary prospects are concerned, a data analyst commands an average annual salary of Rs. 465K in India (source: Payscale). With experience, this package can go as high as Rs. 986K. The top skills that lead to better pay are knowledge of SQL, Microsoft Excel, Python programming, data analysis, database management, and reporting. Established technology companies, as well as startups, are ready to hire data analysts with the right skills and pay lucrative salaries to them.
So, with such bright career prospects, there is no reason to ignore the field of data analytics for your career. If you are a beginner and don’t have any prior understanding of data analytics, you can take up an online training course. A reliable data analytics course will teach you all the basics and help you dive into the intermediate and advanced concepts. Such courses are often designed by industry experts and give students a rich learning experience. Lastly, you can start looking for a course right away and start a flourishing career in data analytics.