Definition
Briefly, we can describe data analytics as a discipline or a type of job which deals with raw data. This discipline or job extracts meaningful relations among those raw data. Then, you put them a meaning that this meaning becomes information for other people such as for other departments in a company like marketing.
Why do we need data analytics?
We need data analytics because
- If we do not analyse data, then some important relations among information could be lost.
- We want to make conclusions with the data we have. There could be important business decisions after those conclusions.
- We want to learn what happened in the past.
- We want to learn what could happen in the future.
- There is probably a huge amount of data which includes lots of properties and we want to extract the most valuable insights from it.
What should you know to be able to work in data analytics?
It is important to know statistics, Excel capabilities, related basis business information. Besides these, some programming languages such as Python, R and SQL are very popular and helpful in data analytics. Although for most companies SQL and Excel are just enough to complete their works or tasks but still if you know the other programming languages as well, then you can be more flexible and ready to changing and challenging new tasks.
Moreover, we should add one more important skill set here that if you want to work as a data analyst, then you need to know how to present your work and results very good. So, that brings us to the point that you need to use Power Point or a similar tool good. We can name this skill as a soft skill and soft skills are equally important to those technical skills. If you cannot show what you find or what you think, then nobody wants to hear what you try to say.
If you want to read and learn more about data analytics, then I would recommend this article on Wikipedia.
Note: You can also check this blog post and some other interesting topics on my personal web page.
