Experts who can extract useful information from large amounts of data and integrate their business expertise with knowledge of data, to solve the challenges arising in the improvement of business are, particularly in demand.
Singapore is at the heart of Asia, and with robust information technology infrastructure, its strong global connectivity can host and process huge volumes of real-time data.
The culturally diverse population of Singapore offers the ideal location for testing innovations that are made for Asia.
A broad economy enables access to industry-specific knowledge needed for coming up with the best analytics.
Professionals interested in analytics can take up data analytics courses in Singapore and become a part of the top tech companies, that are working on data analytics related projects.
Digital transformation has not only affected one country but the entire world. With the rise of Big Data, analytics services and expertise are needed urgently. Let us understand the basics of data analytics and what is its future in Singapore.
What is data analytics?
Data Analytics includes the processes involved in examining the data sets in order to extract the useful information they contain, by using specialised systems and software.
Data analytics tools and techniques are widely used by scientists in commercial industries to help companies make decisions that are beneficial to the company.
These are also used by researchers so that they may verify or disprove scientific models, hypotheses and theories.
The most important skill a data analyst is expected to possess is optimisation.
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The reason behind this is they need to create and modify algorithms that are to be used to handpick useful information, from the whole set of databases and that too without the chances of errors.
Data Analytics refers to an assortment of applications that are used for basic Business Intelligence (BI), reporting and OLAP (online analytical processing), and many other forms of advanced analytics.
Data Analytics helps businesses to:
- Increase revenues
- Improve operational efficiency
- Optimise marketing campaigns and customer service efforts
- Respond more quickly and efficiently to emerging marketing trends
- Gain a competitive edge over rivals
All this is achieved by keeping in mind a common goal of improving business performance.
Data is analysed against the requirement of the project. Something that seems useful to you may actually not be considered.
For example, analysed data can consist of historical records for some applications and may represent new information that has been processed for another application.
It may also come from a blend of internal and external data sources.
In other words, data analysis depends on the particular application.
There are four basic types of data analytics:
Descriptive Analysis: Describes what has happened over the given duration of time — as in what is the response of customers over the last month.
Diagnostic Analytics: Finds out the reason behind why something happened. Here hypothesis is made and more diverse data are input.
Predictive Analytics: Moves towards what is going to happen in the near term. As in how the weather is going to be next week.
Prescriptive Analytics: Prescribes a course of action, on the basis of the results of the above three steps. (e.g. If it is going to be cold, more focus is to be made on warm garments)
Some of the top job roles in Data Analytics include:
- IT System Analyst
- Healthcare Data Analyst
- Operations Analyst
- Data Scientist
- Data Engineer
- Quantitative Analysis
- Data Analytics Consultant
- Digital Marketing Manager
- Project Manager
- Transportation Logistics Specialist
Future of data analytics in Singapore
Data Analytics has been identified as an important sector of growth and an important constraint that enables businesses and government to improve productivity, competitiveness and growth as Singapore moves to become a Smart Nation.
The data industry has seen rapid growth in Singapore, and the need for data management and interpretation has increased the demand for skilled professionals.
In the last few years, data centre operations have grown significantly.
Singapore is becoming a hot spot for data storage and processing and is ranked the fourth-largest market in the Asia-Pacific for Internet data centres behind Japan, China and India.
It has been chosen as one of the destinations to house data by internet giants like Google, Facebook and Amazon.
Facebook alone is currently investing $1.4 billion in a 170,000sqm building in Singapore, which is going to be the world’s largest data centre under one roof.
According to EDB Singapore, data analytics services are expected to reach $37 billion by 2022. This is getting support from government investments and incentives, and from REITs (real estate investments trusts).
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Looking at the huge disparity between the supply and demand of data analytics professionals, Singapore aims to train 2,500 multidisciplinary data analytics professionals to join the workforce.
The areas where data analytics is expected to bring great transformation may be:
- Urban Services
- Supply Chain/Logistics
- Consumer/Retail
- Healthcare
- Finance
- Security
- Manufacturing
Wrapping up
Now that you know about the growing opportunities in the field of data analytics, you should work on improving your skills and aim for a high-paying job.
You can start by enrolling in a data analytics course online.
The training courses available and blended approach can be of great help if you want to work in Singapore, as it has lots of gateways open for you with expertise in Data Analytics.
This article is contributed by SimpliLearn.
