Data management skills are in demand in the modern workplace. Data is everywhere, and this is because of the digitized world that we live in. Data availability has finally reached its zenith with the introduction of IoT devices that are constantly generating data.
You may wonder what type of jobs need data management. But ideally, quite a number of occupations have this as a core skill in their operations. More often, the jobs need to manage and manipulate data. The skill is needed across a variety of industries and occupations like marketing, customer service, healthcare, public safety, and urban planning.
The sheer volume of data available to an organization today can be overwhelming for some organizations. This is why all employees of an organization must have a good understanding of their organization’s data – both structured and unstructured.
Jobs that involve managing data include:
Data Scientist
Data Science is a field that requires a wide variety of skills and data management skill is one of them. The skills are a requisite that you can’t do without if you aspire to take the data scientist career.
Data management includes more than just data extraction. In order to know what data needs to be extracted, Data scientists must have a strong understanding of the business domain and how it relates to the information being collected.
Data Scientists typically have strong analytical knowledge, but they may not have experience structuring information or extracting or storing large amounts of data for an organization or business. This presents a need to have a wide range of skills, including those unrelated to data analysis.
A data scientist needs to be very good at managing data. It is not just about collecting and analyzing the data. Still, it is also about understanding the insights that the user wants and then making sure that it is appropriately collected for this purpose.
Data management skill is essential for any aspiring data scientist. It involves all the tasks involved in storing, organizing, presenting, analyzing, and extracting meaning from large volumes of raw or processed data for efficient use.
Systems Analyst
A Systems Analyst is a person who studies and identifies the information needs of an organization and recommends solutions to achieve organizational goals. They also work to evaluate and recommend upgrades to the systems that make up the company’s information technology infrastructure.
Systems analysts require data management skills because they work with data and oversee its management, protecting it from loss or corruption, ensuring availability when needed, and making sure that it is reliable for use.
The systems analyst will have to have some knowledge of data management skills. It is not necessary for them to be fluent, but it is good to know the basics. This is because they will be dealing with technical data that needs to be transferred from one system to another.
Data Engineer
A Data Engineer is a specialist in managing data. They have to have skills in data management, coding, and software engineering.
Data engineers are responsible for the infrastructure of the company’s data. They must design a system that can use a large amount of data and the security measures that the company needs to take. Data engineers also have to have excellent communication skills because they work closely with other departments at their company, such as customer service, marketing, and business development.
Marketing
Marketing has always been about collecting data and analyzing the data to find the best solution. This task is becoming complex with rapidly emerging new technologies such as social media, machine learning, IoT, and AI.
But today, marketers use data for targeting their audience more accurately than ever before. This means coming up with strategies for reaching customers on diverse channels, including social media, email marketing, websites, blogs, content marketing, etc.
This is because marketers are now collecting data and using it to predict customer behavior to be ahead of their customers. The increasing data generated every day makes it necessary for marketers to have data management skills in order to store all this information into a system that provides easy access for future use.
Customer Service
Customer service is an essential part of every business, and the person who is tasked with providing this service needs to be equipped with a variety of skills. If you want to become a customer service representative, you need to know how to handle negative feedback, but also how to react when there’s nothing wrong.
Data management skills are often listed as part of the requirements for customer service representatives because they help you respond quickly and appropriately throughout your day-to-day work. These skills allow you to deal with customers effectively by knowing their concerns and questions before they can ask them.
To provide the best customer service possible, businesses or companies need people who can answer questions about products and provide information on the latest updates in the company or offer personalized service through chat or phone calls. -Public Safety: These professionals work.
Product Management
A product manager is a person who has a deep understanding of the customer, business, and technical aspects of a product. They take the design and engineering ideas and transforms them into something that will be valuable to customers.
Besides, the manager is not just an idea person, and they are also skilled at managing the process of taking somebody else’s idea and making it happen. These people typically have strong analytical skills, which they use to determine whether or not a given project will be profitable for the company in the long term.
Having all these tasks at hand, they need to understand data management to collect and analyze data on their products in order to make informed decisions about their projects. They need to know how analytics affect whether or not an app is successful or how well their marketing campaigns are doing with consumers.
They are also responsible for the success of a product through their understanding of customer needs, market trends, and strategic vision. With this responsibility, they require data management skills.
Transport Logistics Specialist
A transport logistics specialist is responsible for managing data that are related to the transportation of goods. This specialist is usually employed by a company that specializes in commercial freight transportation. In order to be successful as a transport logistics specialist, one needs to possess data management skills as well as good supply chain knowledge.
Data management skills are essential for all those involved in the supply chain, from planners and producers to shippers, carriers, and retailers. The first step is to master the basics of transportation and freight flow management systems. You then need to understand warehousing procedures and distribution networks, warehouse operations, cargo handling operations, and loading & unloading procedures for various modes of transport.
The mastery of the data management skills by the professionals is essential for better decision-making. This enables the company to make suitable adjustments in their operations and improve their performance. The transport logistics specialist must also know how to apply different analytics tools and techniques, which are necessary for the analysis of data sets.
The recent years have seen significant growth in the transportation and logistics industry. The skill is marketable in this sector.
Those who have excellent data management skills but don’t have an understanding of transportation or logistics operations can acquire them through training or by working alongside someone who has these skills. On the other hand, those with expertise are better off landing the jobs and executing the skills.
Quantitative Analyst
Data management skills are a must-have for quantitatively minded people. Quantitative analysts usually have to work with data, and they need to know how to manipulate and analyze it. Data management skills are a part of this process because data is a valuable resource that can be used in various ways for quantitative analysis.
Since quantitative analysts work with data for a living, the data they use can be structured or unstructured. It may come from numerous sources, such as databases, spreadsheets, or text files. In order to make sense of the data and perform their analysis, quantitative analysts need to have good Data Management skills.
A quantitative analyst has to learn how to extract meaning from raw data and present them in a logical and understandable format in order to produce valuable insights and information that will help the decision-making process in an organization.
Software Engineering
Software engineering is one discipline that involves the design, development, testing, and installation of software products. For this discipline to be successful, the engineering team needs to have skills in data management as well as software development. Data management skills are those that provide guidance on how to collect data from real-life scenarios and then use it to create solutions for the problem at hand.
In order for a team to be successful in creating a solution for a problem, they need both software engineering and data management skills. Software engineers need to have skills in developing algorithms that can be put into use with data management practices. Without one skill set or the other, software engineers cannot correctly provide solutions that will work efficiently and effectively in real-life scenarios.
Software engineers use data management skills to create efficient and clean software architecture. Data is considered the oil of the economy, and software engineers make sure that it is flowing. They design the architecture of an application, which includes how data is stored, retrieved, processed, and transmitted.
The process of storing data in a database will be different depending on what type of database you are using. The engineer must also know how to efficiently get information from a database, whether it’s from an SQL command line or querying a Web service. Engineers may need to know how to manipulate or interpret data, for example, by sorting a list alphabetically to make it more usable for users.
Business Operations
Data management skills are essential for any business operation. It is the process of organizing, storing, maintaining, and securing data. Data management includes hardware installation, software applications, network configurations, and data backups.
Data management is an integral part of every organization’s IT strategy because it ensures that data integrity is maintained at all times. When you have poor data management skills, it can lead to huge losses in productivity and revenue.
A few organizations with big-data requirements employ people in the role of a DBA (database administrator) responsible for managing databases at scale. Database administrators also plan database design and implementation strategies to meet the changing needs of the organization.
Sales Management
Sales management is the process of managing the sales of products or services. Data is an integral part of this process in all the operations, as it can help establish targets, measure progress, and identify new business opportunities. Having all these tasks at hand, sales management has to make sure that the marketing and sales processes are running smoothly and efficiently to manage and drive company revenue.
In order to be successful in this role, one must have data-driven insights, which will help them in making informed decisions. This is achievable by collecting data from various sources such as CRM systems, customer surveys, marketing campaigns, etc. Sales managers need to understand what data points to track and how they can use these points in making decisions for their team and company.
Before you start with your sales management responsibilities, you should be aware of how data plays a key role in the process. Once you possess this knowledge, it will be easier for you to identify opportunities and implement solutions to help your company grow.
Data will play a key role in sales management processes like setting up targets, measuring progress and identifying new business opportunities.
Some entrepreneurs may be tempted to focus solely on their company’s products or services when they begin their management careers. However, they will want to learn about what data has to offer – as it can provide opportunities for better understanding their target.
Statistician
Statisticians will need to have a firm grounding in data management skills if they want to succeed in their careers. This is because the work of a statistician often involves analyzing and interpreting data sets which can be quite complex and usually contains different types of data.
The job profile for a statistician will depend on their specialization; for example, actuarial work or biostatistics will require different knowledge sets. However, all statisticians will need to understand statistical principles such as sampling techniques, probability distributions, and confidence intervals.
For this reason, statisticians need to be able to use computer software such as Excel or SPSS to analyze data sets and manipulate them into formats that are appropriate for use.
Bottom Line
Data management is a crucial tool that all fields in the future will use. The need for data management skills is increasing. Data analytics, data mining, and database management are just three of the domains that require the use of these skills. With the growing demand for professionals in this field, organizations are also facing a shortage of qualified candidates to fill their positions.
However, while there is a shortage of professionals with data-related skills, this type of job does not require an advanced degree or formal training program; instead, these positions can be filled with people who have experience in similar fields like computer information systems (CIS) or business intelligence (BI).
You have to know that the jobs involve handling data and ensuring that they are in the best possible shape. It’s a challenging job and often requires strong analytical skills, strong communication skills, and the willingness to cope with uncertainty.
References:
General Assembly: 5 High-Paying Options & How to Get Started
Dataquest: 11 High-Paying Data Analytics Jobs in 2020
Northeastern University: 11 Data Science Careers Shaping Our Future