Why is it Important for Analysts to Learn New and Improved Analytics Tools?

When analytics teams don’t learn the latest, most-efficient analytics tools available, it can sometimes prevent the organization from getting as much value as possible from their data. Learning new and improved analytics tools does take time though; the pressing (and never-ending) fire drills of today have a way of always making it to the top of an analytics team’s priority list; but, if your analytics team can find a way to spend even a few hours each week learning new analytics tools and techniques, it can have a snowball effect on their productivity. Those first few investments can translate into higher efficiency on all of the regular projects they’re working on, which creates even more time in future weeks to learn new tools and techniques. This cycle continues until your team is operating at a level of efficiency that allows them to spend much more time proactively coming up with robust advanced analytics solutions to address your business opportunities and challenges.

New and improved analytics tools and techniques are continually being developed, and it’s important for your analytics team to use the ones that will help them be as efficient and effective as possible. Imagine one construction builder using a shovel to dig a large foundation, while another is using an excavator; the difference in speed and cost can be significant, yet some businesses are operating with this kind of difference in analytics capabilities. If your team is using the same tool that was popular for analytics 15-20 years ago, there’s a high probability that a much more effective and efficient tool is available now…and that many of your competitors are using it! Over the past 15 years, many companies have switched from SAS to R to Python to reduce spend on their advanced analytics tools. Over the past 15 years, many companies have switched from an on-premises SQL database to a cloud-based SQL database, which can dramatically increase storage capacity and query speed while reducing costs. Perhaps one of the most significant analytics developments over the past 15 years has been the transition from manual, static Excel reporting to automated, interactive dashboarding in platforms like Power BI and Tableau.

If your analytics team hasn’t made these transitions, it’s very likely they could be 2 times more efficient (or more) by learning to use more advanced analytics tools; but how do you get a team to learn new and improved analytics tools? Do you try to force them to with a top-down approach? At Value Driven Analytics, we follow a “bottom-up” approach that starts with driving change through demonstrating the benefits of adopting more advanced analytics technologies. Executing some quick wins with advanced analytics tools and techniques is a great way to demonstrate their value to the organization’s analysts (and management!). After seeing a few examples of how the new tools and techniques introduced are helping the organization drive more value with data (and cutting down on work time), the vast majority of analysts will be sold on the changes and many will be inspired to start researching the tools themselves and start applying them to their projects. Once the team is motivated to learn, the organization should then provide accessible trainings and development initiatives to help them do just that. In this way, analysts gain both the will and the skill to start using more advanced analytics tools and techniques that should dramatically increase their efficiency and effectiveness. Watch the video above to learn more techniques to get more done in less time! Watch this video to learn about our 7-step roadmap for analytics transformation.