Advising new organizations
AA: Given your expertise, if you were to join a new organization and they were quite new to the whole field of data science and analytics, what would be your general advice for them to get it up and running?
CS: When you are just getting started, I would say be careful; do not take on too many costs from the start by immediately hiring a full-on data science and engineering team. It can be quite pricey. The right talent is going to cost you, and analytics also usually sees more long-term benefits. You may not show enough short-term benefits to justify its maintenance if it is very expensive right from the get-go. Build up slowly with a small but solid team that can pursue different pilot projects for production – projects that show promise and steady growth opportunities for the business. Then, you can start growing that team as is but don’t try to take on too much at once. Narrow down what can bring value to the company through a data value...