PRO+ Premium Content/Business Information

Data scientists are adept at manipulating data and building analytical models to run against it. But they may not be well-versed in the meaning and relevance of business data, which is prompting data science teams to link up with business analysts and other workers who can help them better understand the data they analyze. Closer ties to business data experts can also reduce the upfront data preparation work by data scientists. Data prep often eats up a large chunk of their time, but leaning on curated data sets created by the likes of business analysts frees up data scientists to focus more on their analytics duties -- and guarantees they're working with data germane to business operations. That's in keeping with the main goal: ensuring that the advanced analytics work done by data science teams aligns with real business needs and issues. "We always have business representation [in the analytics process], because there's no value in manipulating data for no valid reason," said Christian Anschuetz, chief digital officer at ...