Why some companies fail at data science

We were recently joined by Matt Dancho, Founder at Business Science.

Halfway into our discussion (29:27) we spoke a bit about why some companies fail at data science. Matt shares: I think that there’s going to be a new role here in the next couple of years – that companies are going to start adopting the role of the business scientist. You already have a business analyst.

The more I think about the problem and the challenge with data science and why companies often fail with data science – it is not because they don’t have good people or problem solvers.

It’s because they lose sight of the business-first mentality, where you need to be able to start with a problem in an organization, be able to work with many different levels of the organization (from executives to line managers to the people who are doing the work), and you have to work cross-functionally throughout the company.

To me, this requires a heavy business acumen. This is more than knowing data and a few algorithms that I can throw at the data. No, that’s not how it goes.

The most successful people that I’ve seen are the ones that are able to communicate effectively, that know what the target of the organization is, the objectives, and they can take that down and translate it across the organization.