Meaningful and achievable steps – a view from Deloitte

Talent, skills, people, is actually really crucial when it comes to an effective data strategy. And there is a there is a challenge in the market with the number of skilled, trained people that are coming through out of schools, universities, and I think, just in Scotland alone, we’ve got a real skills gap. So a lot of organisations do struggle. But my recommendation is that you don’t only look at that cohort of people when you when you’re looking at plugging that skills gap in your organisation, you actually look at your existing people and you say, who who’s got the the the appetite and the aptitude to actually retrain. I’m reading an interesting book at the moment called wisdom at work.

And there it’s very much about it’s the people with business skills, the length of time in the in the business, who actually are probably that you’re going to be your most valuable data scientists, if you can give them some of this, the analytical and technical skills as well. And that’s, that’s what we would recommend as a important strategy. So look at your existing people, particularly those people that may be displaced through AI and, automation. And the second thing I would say is, you don’t have to have all the data skills within your organisation, you know, work with partners.

There are a lot of organisations that offer managed services, for example, that can take away the pain for example, improving your data quality, or giving you a better data management operation. You might not have those data engineers in your organisation, well if it’s not a core part of your business, why not outsource that, get get somebody else to take that pain away from you and that, that sometimes can be an effective way of not having to have all the skills within your organisation.