'Big data analyst', a new buzz in IT career

As data flow is increasing across companies, a new breed of IT professionals called ‘Big data analysts’ (BDAs), who know how to manage and optimise big data environments, are maximising their earning potentials as they are highly in demand.
With huge shortage of skills, the biggest hurdle across companies at present is to find the right talent to analyse the data flow.       
The chief operating officer (COO) and co-founder of Redwood Associates, Pavan Bhat, talking on why students can explore a career as a BDA, said, “With the total data growth expected to reach 35 zettabytes by 2020, one of the major factors affecting the speedy flow of data is the shortage of analytical talent. There is a huge demand for big data analysts and companies in India as well as abroad are now recruiting specialised individuals for taking up the roles required in delivering an efficient analytic programme.”
To make correct and informed decisions in understanding and analysing data, Bhat said that companies across sectors have now started giving importance to BDAs.
“You may have loads of data but unless you have someone to understand that data and effectively channelise it to your business, the data would be just be of no value. With more resources for storage, data collection has become highly efficient with the current generation of companies. The only challenge now lies in capturing maximum amount of data for analysis,” he said.
Co-chairman, IT committee, MCCIA, and chairman, board of studies (computer management), Pune University, Deepak Shikarpur, said that BDA is the new hot skill on the block, wherein Indian academic system are also gearing up to handle the new success mantra. “Companies are and will continue to be looking for employees with a complex set of skills to tap big data of competitive advantage. Very soon, specialised courses and certifications will be available for the same,” he said.
However, Shikarpur said that BDA is not a straight-jacketed career. “Big data analytics is the application of advanced analytic techniques to very large and diverse data sets, a technique to uncover hidden patterns, unknown correlations and other useful information,” he added.  Using techniques such as predictive analytics, data mining, statistics and natural language processing, Shikarpur said the businesses can study data to understand the current state of the business and track customer behaviour.