Data science is the new hot cake everyone wants to take a bite from, all the industries are gunning to get their stronghold by using the most valuable resource of all, not oil, but data.

Why is Data so Valuable?

Well, to sum it up, data in its crude form isn’t very useful and neither valuable, but with the help of certain mathematical tools and scientific methods this data can be used to predict and enact certain phenomena, it could be anything from consumer behavior to the buying practices of a multi-billion dollar organization. Data Science is the domain that introduces ways to synthesize and analyze that data, to create insights, and make accurate predictions of future events.

Harvard did not call data scientist the sexiest job of the 21st century, but to keep that title to itself, data science has been away from the eyes of the common man, it requires a high knowledge of mathematics, business acumen, and computer science.

Data science is the culmination of all three, and it thoroughly uses all these to become one of the most interesting industries to work in. The potential here is unfathomable and we have barely scratched the surface of what it is capable of.

Though the scenario is changing now, data science is being used everywhere to make everything better and more dynamic to what the product delivers to the customer.

For example, Netflix and Amazon Prime use data science techniques and methods to predict watching behavior, recommending their users whatever can satisfy their hunger for new content. Tiktok, a video sharing application, even though it is banned in many countries now for various reasons, but it has been one the fastest app to capture the market, just because of their User Interface and how they use consumer data.

The time spent on a particular kind of content, whether the consumer liked it or not, what content was shared how many times, number of times the consumer skipped something, all these things are recorded and this crude data is then used for optimization, pattern detection, and grouping, what do we have now?

A simple application that can accurately predict the tastes of customers, as if acting as a fast-food chain that can directly take samples from the taste buds of its customers, that is the power of data science and it is bound to grow into sectors, we never thought it would.

Microsoft is working with jewelry manufacturers to employ Artificial Intelligence and use data science to make the process of designing stone jewelry faster, by studying the likes and dislikes of customers, thus making the process more customer-centric, that is the essence of the jewelry business, making customers feel satisfied by offering them luxury. As the market gets flooded with various vendors offering competitive projects, a slight edge can take the realized profits to another level.

It is the next step in automation, a simple model, if designed properly can do tons of work for a fraction of the cost incurred while using other methods, some simulation models created with the help of data science were employed to predict the movement of people when the pandemic struck in the UK, it had a 1-2% error in predicting the behavior over weeks and now is being used to predict further behavior.

HR is one such domain where a lot of work can be done, HRIT is a less traveled road but it has a huge upside if used efficiently, a simple feedback form, which is normally used to make charts out of options with ratings of 1 to 5, can be used much more efficiently if keyword analysis is used, sometimes it is hard to rate the industrial practices on a scale, data science gives freedom to employees to write whatever they want, instead of choosing a middle ground at places, they can write what they want and the model will judge their reactions, do a proper analysis of that data and aid the process of gaining insights from the data, which will be much more dense and useful than the one collected manually.

Data science has the potential to change how we think about business, and what can change our thinking can change our lives. As businesses move towards perfecting the customer experience, data science is there holding their ground ready to be unleashed and change the business for the better.

About the Author

Lakhshya is a mechanical engineer from IP University, he’s a blockchain enthusiast and is now exploring the only thing that can surpass blockchain, data science, with a special interest in prediction and behavior analysis with data.