In the digital age, when companies are trying to adopt marketing analytics for digital transformation, other than technology challenges, there are faced with resource constraints too. Companies and agencies are hunting for the right talent. The global Harvey Nash 2015 CIO survey conducted by KPMG has discovered this challenges faced by most of the organizations.
The skill shortage in organization is acting as a hindrance for Chief Information Officer when it comes to deploying analytics tools and leveraging them. On the other hand there are initiatives from government like Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) in Singapore collaborating with Google and the analytics consultancy company Sparkline to recruit fresh candidates and train them on data analytics. Reuters states the squared data analytics program me launched in July last year is a part of IDA”s training programme that supports the industry in recruiting , mentoring and training the entrants in technologies like data and analytics as well as mobile application development. The next phase of the programme is expected to commence on July 2015 and February 2016 to provide intensive training in analytics to Singaporean graduates to work within media and creative agencies, travel and telecom sectors and thereby reduce the gap between skills of individual and its worthiness with the job. .
However Chris Shearmon, Associate director of Prime Insight, a recruitment firm declared that even though talents are being pooled through government initiatives companies lacks philosophy of placing such individuals in job. In spite of initiatives to eradicate the menace there’s still gap between the skills required and the skills available. Companies are trying out multiple steps to solve this challenge; they are mostly recruiting experienced hires having analytical skills especially with the use of open source or newer big data technologies like Hadoop, Python etc.
Having right skill set and talent to do marketing analytics is critical. They need to be marketing experts and at the same time knowledgeable in managing large volumes of data to derive meaningful information. They need to be familiar to marketing techniques and methodologies at the same have statistical and analytical know how to drive optimal insights with big data for decision making. The quest for right skill set will continue as the demand for marketing analytics is on the rise for enterprises.
