Will Automation Eliminate Data Science Positions in Business: Expectations vs. Reality

Expectation.

Let me ask a serious question: Is data science itself the be-all and end-all for businesses? As we'll explore in the following two sections, it may be a bit of a misnomer, as "data science" is frequently used in the guise of using machine learning to "help" businesses make strategic decisions. However, you interpret that phrase - and many others similar to it - the underlying logic that the companies using data science have a business realignment that shifts the focus there. The data-science shift was partly made by a recent Harvard Business Review article, "How CEOs Can Lead a Data-Driven Culture," by Thomas H. Davenport and Nitin Mittal on 23 March 2020. The article identified a shift in how many CEOs see data and science (not necessarily data science!) as part of the business core. Still, it defined data at its core - or at least the methods that companies need to use to collect and develop data to make it - as a critical aspect of the business strategy. The article listed the following essential elements on this journey: Establishing cultural change programs, Leading By Example, and installing the notion of technology as everyone's job. While these are interesting on their own, they need to be more to dig into in the scope of this article. It would be a good idea to dig into each in more detail. But looking at a map of the business sectors and potential future growth opportunities, it's clear that companies face at least three significant challenges on this journey!

·      First, the explosion of data can potentially disrupt how organizations do business today and into the future.

·      Second, because many organizations have an inadequate system for collecting (and analyzing) data - and often an antiquated system for integrating data into its systems and business operations (feedback loops) - the data produced by customers and competitors play a critical role in who reaps the benefits in this game of data as an organizational asset.

·      Third, and most importantly, these challenges reshape the nature of the role of the CIO. CIOs are still primarily seen as information technology managers or ITMs. That may change as the continuous and evolving growth of cloud computing, and the DevOps movement drives software development and organizational IT operations to combine and streamline. As infrastructure and applications converge, CIOs will no longer need to supervise traditional, and manual IT tasks as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure quickly do the heavy lifting in value propositions. With these growing technologies, the demand for organizations' CIOs to develop increasing managerial and strategic skills to drive cloud computing solutions drastically increases. On the other hand, the expectation is that cost-effectiveness and efficiency are at the forefront of their strategy, adding an extra dimension to their traditional role within an organization and driving down the cost of doing IT business.

Reality.

In recent years, leading AI companies have made inroads to capitalize on the expectation, especially in consumer health data in the healthcare field and the Data Security realm. For example, Alphabet's (GOOG) brilliant acquisition of Fitbit's location data expertise for mobile health tracking driven significant gains for Google's parent company. Or another example wherein cloud-tech giant Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) is ahead of big healthcare providers and alternative software providers in areas such as "data security." However, as big tech giants, including Google (GOOG), Facebook (FB), and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), evaluate stepping into the market offering similar data security tools, the competition heats up. If healthcare is like healthcare in China, which has many people in China very poorly connected via mobile phones, it would be perfect for a new set of tech tools to protect patient health info. With their massive cloud infrastructures, organizations like Amazon Web Services (AWS) could help hospitals and health system vendors store and route their big data. Hospitals and data systems may think highly about using such services or AWS to connect to existing healthcare infrastructure, including wearable healthcare devices and telemedicine, to reduce waiting times and improve care efficiency. It is hard to argue if AWS is just that good; they are! The company has now risen an impressive 16 weeks, and three months in a row on positive sentiment along with an attractive forward dividend yield, increasing shareholder returns in the near term despite higher energy and logistics expenses. More importantly, the company is less exposed to the volatile entertainment industry, with a vast archive of loyal subscribers unlikely to suffer the fate of Sony Corporation (SNE), which is now no longer a leading entertainment player after a failed bid to become a significant network player. Disney's shares are trading within the top half of long-term topping patterns, predicting range-bound action in the coming months between $132 and $137 as of 29 August 2020. This level is critical, with a reversal breaking range below signaling a failed breakout that may mark the final leg of a multi-year downtrend.

In summary, it is ever more critical for CIOs to leverage Data Scientists within their organizational constructs to drive growth within their businesses. It is evident that the organizations highlighted in this article not only engage an Analytics-First strategy starting with the question (coined by Dr. Kirk Boone, Principle Data Scientist at Booze Allen Hamilton) but have moved well past managing data and are using it to foster their respective competitive advantages, moving into newer markets and dominating them using Data Science technologies to maneuver the competition while identifying new viable needs strategically. Lastly, to answer the question: Will Automation Eliminate Data Science Positions in Business? The answer is No; it will only grow them!