I want to point out that you have to set the right expectation with your stakeholders and keep them updated even if there are failures and challenges. People will be supportive. Nobody wants to be surprised. That’s the other skill I picked up.
Then I joined Accenture in 2003.In India, it was not established as a delivery center at the time. Globally they were the No.2 consulting firm. Accenture called me up saying they wanted to set up their BI practice and they considered it to be a business priority but they had no base in India.
We not only established India with the capability for a BI venture, we also made it a figure on the map of Accentures global business. From there I gradually moved on and now I am the Global Head of Account Management and the journey has been great so far.
Risks Taken
I
took a few risks. A few crucial decisions were going away from
mainframe Cobol centric technology to Java which I had to learn on my
own as at that time there wasnt a lot of coaching. So one had to network
or bother experienced guys.
Java to data warehousing was again a huge leap as far as skills was concerned. BI was the newest kid on the block.
The next risk followed soon. At Infosys I had set a practice up. We had a few clients and were running a good practice. I was working directly with Shibulal- what else would you need? From there I was coming into Accenture; a new unit being set up with no clients, no team members and they wanted to set up the BI practice from the ground up. I was not only responsible for selling and delivering a complex account, but also for developing the practice.
I was comfortable early on in Cobol mainframe. There was no need for me to venture into uncomfortable areas. I had successfully delivered projects. I could have stuck to coding and building apps. It was only the willingness to learn new technology that pushed me.
To be a good architect, as opposed to just a coding mentality, you need an overall development mentality. You have to keep learning.
1. Increasing need for verticalization: In the future, a person belonging to the BI domain wont say " I am a BI professional". He will say "I am a BI professional specializing in insurance." There will be a short supply of people who understand the data in a business context. There will be need to develop each specialization for a domain besides dealing with the technology.
2. Data scientist: Today data management and statistics are treated as two different subjects altogether. As we go forward with huge volumes and varieties of data, it will be impossible to analyze all this data. Hence for the basic skill to be a data scientist, an individual should have the ability to look at data and run some statistical analysis on it, run algorithms and make it look meaningful. It’s not just about reporting, you need to be able to make sense of information.
3. Data visualization: At present reports are still one dimensional and two dimensional but in the future we will need to be able to visualize data in an intuitive way. Nobody has the time to deal with data although it has become more complex.Read all my books! The motivation to write was that I didn’t find reading material which was particularly helpful for BI developers. I wrote Data Warehousing way back in 2005. Earlier books only provided approaches and theoretical aspects which a developer could not follow and that’s where I struggled. I realized if I have to teach 300 people, having a practical guide would be simpler.
When I find time, I try to go through the websites information-management.com and businessintelligence.com
1. Increasing need for verticalization: In the future, a person belonging to the BI domain wont say " I am a BI professional". He will say "I am a BI professional specializing in insurance." There will be a short supply of people who understand the data in a business context. There will be need to develop each specialization for a domain besides dealing with the technology.
2. Data scientist: Today data management and statistics are treated as two different subjects altogether. As we go forward with huge volumes and varieties of data, it will be impossible to analyze all this data. Hence for the basic skill to be a data scientist, an individual should have the ability to look at data and run some statistical analysis on it, run algorithms and make it look meaningful. It’s not just about reporting, you need to be able to make sense of information.
3. Data visualization: At present reports are still one dimensional and two dimensional but in the future we will need to be able to visualize data in an intuitive way. Nobody has the time to deal with data although it has become more complex.I want to point out that you have to set the right expectation with your stakeholders and keep them updated even if there are failures and challenges. People will be supportive. Nobody wants to be surprised. That’s the other skill I picked up.
Then I joined Accenture in 2003.In India, it was not established as a delivery center at the time. Globally they were the No.2 consulting firm. Accenture called me up saying they wanted to set up their BI practice and they considered it to be a business priority but they had no base in India.
We not only established India with the capability for a BI venture, we also made it a figure on the map of Accentures global business. From there I gradually moved on and now I am the Global Head of Account Management and the journey has been great so far.
Risks Taken
I
took a few risks. A few crucial decisions were going away from
mainframe Cobol centric technology to Java which I had to learn on my
own as at that time there wasnt a lot of coaching. So one had to network
or bother experienced guys.
Java to data warehousing was again a huge leap as far as skills was concerned. BI was the newest kid on the block.
The next risk followed soon. At Infosys I had set a practice up. We had a few clients and were running a good practice. I was working directly with Shibulal- what else would you need? From there I was coming into Accenture; a new unit being set up with no clients, no team members and they wanted to set up the BI practice from the ground up. I was not only responsible for selling and delivering a complex account, but also for developing the practice.
I was comfortable early on in Cobol mainframe. There was no need for me to venture into uncomfortable areas. I had successfully delivered projects. I could have stuck to coding and building apps. It was only the willingness to learn new technology that pushed me.
To be a good architect, as opposed to just a coding mentality, you need an overall development mentality. You have to keep learning.
1. Increasing need for verticalization: In the future, a person belonging to the BI domain wont say " I am a BI professional". He will say "I am a BI professional specializing in insurance." There will be a short supply of people who understand the data in a business context. There will be need to develop each specialization for a domain besides dealing with the technology.
2. Data scientist: Today data management and statistics are treated as two different subjects altogether. As we go forward with huge volumes and varieties of data, it will be impossible to analyze all this data. Hence for the basic skill to be a data scientist, an individual should have the ability to look at data and run some statistical analysis on it, run algorithms and make it look meaningful. It’s not just about reporting, you need to be able to make sense of information.
3. Data visualization: At present reports are still one dimensional and two dimensional but in the future we will need to be able to visualize data in an intuitive way. Nobody has the time to deal with data although it has become more complex.Read all my books! The motivation to write was that I didn’t find reading material which was particularly helpful for BI developers. I wrote Data Warehousing way back in 2005. Earlier books only provided approaches and theoretical aspects which a developer could not follow and that’s where I struggled. I realized if I have to teach 300 people, having a practical guide would be simpler.
When I find time, I try to go through the websites information-management.com and businessintelligence.com
