Myth: The shift of IT professionals to Analytics is cumbersome.
Fact: A career in software testing can be easily transitioned into analytics.
From an Information Technology (IT) / Software Development (SD) perspective, both software testers and computer programmers are exposed to the nuts and bolts of the software development process. Their job role demands them to perform technical tasks. Thus, both these profiles confer a great advantage in analytics jobs, as an analyst is supposed to perform a techno-functional role.
"Everyone has expected an explosion in 'analytics for IT’ for some time," says David Stodder, director of business intelligence research at TDWI (The Data Warehousing Institute). "But from what I see, the usage is still fairly selective." However, embedding analytics in IT management consoles will help get these (analyzing) capabilities into more shops, Stodder says, as not only HP and IBM but also specialized application performance management providers incorporate analytics.
A highly virtualized infrastructure, big data, and predictive analytics go together. In fact, big, clean, fast-moving flows of real-time information are the lifeblood of predictive IT analytics systems.
PREDICTIVE TECHNOLOGY IN IT
The rise of Big Data is not solely linked to customer loyalty. Ask an analyst about big data and the first set of examples they are likely to share with you will be about airlines. The number of tweets from airline passengers, the number of disgruntled passengers, the number of delighted passengers, etc. The other example is the astounding volume of tweets that get sent when Internet Banking is down. These are great examples of big data generated in response to business scenarios. Customer loyalty managers should be leveraging big data and in particular analytics on big data to enhance their relationships with their customers.
So what about IT?
How would the IT department use Big Data?
Smart people in IT have already discovered the revolutionary insights garnered by applying predictive technologies to big data. They are predicting what is likely to go wrong and addressing those issues before they even appear.
Have a look at the following links to understand how IT giants are tapping the potential of Data Analytics.
IBM PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS
http://www-03.ibm.com/software/products/en/category/predictive-analytics
HP –BIG DATA SOLUTIONS
http://www8.hp.com/in/en/software-solutions/big-data-analytics-software.html
CAREER INSIGHTS
When a software tester/any other IT professional applies for a business analyst job he must work hard to sell himself, by paying heed to the following skills-
Business Analysis Knowledge & Skills
Oral Presentation Skills
Documentation Skills
Hands-on software(coding) experience
Photo by Goran Ivos on Unsplash
