Over the last decade there has been a tremendous increase in understanding and cognizance of utilising data science capabilities to optimise business outcomes, achieve competitive advantage and increase profitability. However, developing in-house employees to be stellar data-scientists through skills training is often seen as time consuming, inefficient resource allocation and a burden on the costs by organisations. Hence many companies are leaning towards outsourcing these competencies to analytics vendors.\nThough traditional models of data-science outsourcing were popular, their inability to maximise value and mitigate risks for the buyer has led to businesses desiring for mature or alternate models. With enterprises being subjected to greater global economic uncertainty, fierce competition, constant disruption in technology, the desire to have more dynamic liaisons with a guarantee of predictable return on investment (ROI) is now more than ever. Outcome based delivery model is a result of these expectations, which enables buyers and providers to collaborate, achieve optimum and measurable returns.\nCertain advantages of outcome-based delivery models in comparison with traditional models are:\nMinimising the delivery risk:\nIn outcome-based models, since the analytics service provider takes responsibility for delivering measurable outcomes or pre-defined outputs, they are more aligned to take ownership of the end results.\nFor e.g. If a vendor is approached to optimise store check-out times, in traditional model vendors would be inclined to analyse the workloads, timelines, etc. However, in outcome-based models the vendor would use analytics to trouble-shoot around processes and technology to reduce the check-out time.\nBetter value for money:\nIn many cases outcome-based models work on the principle of revenues generated or cost-savings achieved. This helps vendors optimising resources to get best returns.\nA good example of this arrangement could be the Air-Audit solution designed by Happiest Minds. It is an outcome-based pricing model where the airlines pay a percentage of revenue leakage identified by the solution. This solution is designed to prevent unnecessary Global Distribution System (GDS) related costs and inventory spoilage caused by non-compliant booking practices.\nCustomisation based on individual needs:\nUnlike traditional models that follow regular practices (like staff augmentation, product-based services) to achieve linear growth, outcome-based models help optimise results.\nA note-worthy example in this regard is how big-data has enabled farmers achieve better results based on their individual needs, thus converting the agri-business into a specialised serviced based industry, rather than a product based one. A collaborative effort in this regard from all allied industries will help the overall crop-output. For example: the fertiliser industry can provide fertilisers based on historical analyses of the soil sample, thereby optimising the cost, and accentuating soil quality.\nLean approach to maximise profits:\nAs all the stakeholders share a common goal of achieving the pre-decided outcome, there is further focus on the exponential growth to be achieved. The outcome-based delivery model typically works with vendors deploying their most skilled resources to the project, who encourage innovation in processes, thereby creating an agile work environment.\nTransparency:\nAs the outcome-based delivery model works as a win- win situation for the vendor and the client, there is an absolute transparency, which further helps build long term relations between both the parties. This in a way ensures client’s data is protected from being shared beyond the scope of work or contract between the stakeholders.\nIn summary, outcome-based delivery model is a “Value driven paradigm” that can enable businesses to capitalize on the unstoppable digital transformation the future holds. Unearthing the processes involved in an outcome-based approach will help businesses uncover unexpected sources of growth, and once successfully implemented these can be scaled to greater business outcomes even though requirements may keep changing.

Something’s Wrong in Traditional Data-Science Consulting: The Imperative of Outcomes Based Pricing

Strategies for small and medium businesses to benefit from data sciences, at the lowest cost!\nOver the past few years, there have been quite a few instances of small to medium companies have been able to streamline their operations, introduce efficiencies and reduce costs by integrating data science into their decision making. However, a look at several recent surveys and reports shows that largely companies are still unable to utilize their data as effectively as they should. Even though there is an appetite among top management for using data in a more effective manner, a right data sciences strategy or the lack of it continues to pose significant challenges for most.\nThese challenges limit the organizations’ ability to leverage the right skills, tools & technologies to accelerate growth and are largely related to the following:\nData Availability & Quality\nThe first and foremost challenge lies with acquiring usable data that could be leveraged without much effort spent in improving its quality. In order to obtain the data, the user touchpoints should be designed to enable data collection. Appropriate design, data quality, compliance & storage considerations should be factored in while doing so. This may imply a need for redefining some existing business processes and re-building or modifying the technology components involved in data collection, cleansing, storage, and processing.
To mitigate this small to medium businesses today are looking at service providers who could provide them with actionable insights by leveraging whatever data assets they possess. Data-preneurs with flexi models are the need of the hour.\nCost of Technology Acquisition\nTo support the data science efforts, it requires significant investment related to multiple technical aspects, including network, user touchpoints (such as mobile apps, web, wearables, IoT devices & sensors), data cleansing tools, data storage hardware and software, analytics & reporting tools, to name a few. In addition, the cost of design and implementation adds to the overall cost of technology acquisition.\nGiven the above cost deterrent, it becomes absolutely imperative for small to medium businesses to look at a technology agnostic way of getting to the most optimal decision. Businesses just are concerned with the getting to the best results in a least cost way, no matter the technology.\nInability to Acquire the Rightly Skilled Resources\nIn addition to the investment in the technology acquisition, other vital element is the availability of the right skills. Building an in-house team of the adequately skilled people often turns out to be a long-drawn and expensive affair, which doesn’t guarantee results either. A viable solution to address the challenges in acquiring the skilled people is to hire freelancers having expertise in data sciences. You can use the CogniticX platform to connect with the real experts to mitigate such a risk.\nRight skilling with each incremental functional requirement is a wishful thought. As a result, organizations may be saddled with skills obsolescence, ones that were expensive to acquire and retain in the first place. Further the same resources may lack functional understanding, which could be a critical differentiator. Circumventing the skills obsolescence challenge is a major hurdle in the successful adoption of data sciences.\nData security and privacy issues\nWhile collecting data is vital to perform data analytics, it also opens your organization to the risks related to data theft, violation of data protection compliance and security attacks. This is why it’s very important to consider data privacy and security as one of the supreme requirements and enforce the required data security measures. These measures should be applied at various levels, including physical & online access to data storage, protection of data in motion, secure coding practices and adherence to the industry-specific compliance.\nThe Mitigation\nFortunately, there are mitigation methods available for small to medium businesses to navigate their way around the data sciences conundrum. The foremost is to look at flexi-leverage models such as those offered by Cogniticx, wherein one could engage a data scientist, armed with the right open source technology and skilled with the appropriate domain understanding to help an organization get to the holy grail, the most optimal decision, on demand.

Surviving the Leap of Faith

Do you have it in you?\nIf you are a data scientist keen on juicing enormous amounts of data to build a better tomorrow, you are at the right place. This article will help you embark on your journey to become a successful data-preneur. Let us begin with understanding the skills and traits you need to get started.\nMust-haves Skills/Traits for a data-preneur\nTools and Coding Skills\nIn order to succeed in your projects, you need to have the right tools and coding skills on the right platforms/languages under your belt. For instance, a sample set of skills you should possess may be:\nProgramming languages, such as R, Python or SAS\nDatabase skills on RDBMS (e.g. MySQL, Oracle, MSSQL Server) & NoSQL DB’s (e.g. MongoDB, CouchBase)\nBig Data & ETL tools, such as Hadoop Mahout stack etc.\nReusable Frameworks or Components\nYour speed of delivery brings you an edge over the competitors. To this end, your personal library of reusable components & framework can shorten the lifespan of a project, help the client get a quicker delivery and in turn, earns you the reputation as an expert.\nTheoretical Subject-Matter Expertise\nThis represents your skills related to:\nConceptual understanding of statistics, pattern recognition, Machine Learning, NLP, AI etc.\nAbility to convert mathematical concepts & algorithms into working programs\nDomain-specific experience\nNot essential to begin with, but a huge plus if you have in-depth expertise in few business domains. This will narrow down your marketing focus and help you build a niche offering for yourselves.\nCommunication & Networking Skills\nTo grow any business, access to the right people and your ability to carry out the right conversations with them are two vital elements. Whereas your communication and networking skills are the crucial traits, platforms like Cogniticx will help you reach your prospects in a much easier way.\nCreativity\nAs a data-preneur, you need to exhibit creativity in several aspects of your work. Whether it’s about creating winning sales pitches, explaining your proposals, or creating the most useful reporting dashboards to help generate the desired business insight, your creativity plays an important role at every step of your journey.\nWhat Do You Need Beyond the Skills?\nA polished & rehearsed sales pitch, a proposal template (customizable), your rate card, case studies demonstrating your experience in sufficient detail, and a can-do attitude to win the difficult prospects\nA business model, describing the constituent People, Processes, Technologies along with the projected expenses and revenues. Of course, the revenue model is a vital element as well.\nCogniticx – Don’t Worry, We’ve Got Your Back!\nCogniticx\n helps you act as the starting point to your journey. Cogniticx is a platform built for data-preneurs and it connects the prospects with the most relevant data-preneurs and facilitates the end-to-end transactions, delivering a fulfilling experience for the client and the data-preneur, both.

Imperatives for a Successful Data-preneur

The Big Data Analytics industry has grown by leaps and bounds over the years as more business enterprises recognise the need to have a systematic approach to scale their operations to greater heights in all aspects ranging from Marketing, Operations, Risk, Fraud and Retail to name a few. Additionally, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are feeding off the increasing sophistication in Data Sciences and Computer Hardware.\nCogniticx- Where “You” are at the core of our service\nGlobalisation not only calls for an integration of markets but also requires organisations to make huge investments in analytics, both applications and resources,  which can aid them in making strategic decisions to steer their venture in the right direction.\nCogniticx is the 1st and only platform in India that offer an exclusive pathway to bridge this gap and offer our clients a top-notch service for them to develop their analytical enterprise without incurring an overhead cost by providing them with an array of Cogniticx experts tailor made to suit their business requirements.\nMake us a part of your success story\nWhile our aim is to serve our clients and help them flourish in their business, it is also our mission to embrace the diversified talents of all the data scientists widespread across the country.\nShould you be a full-time professional, a freelancer, a student looking to create an avenue to leverage upon your analytical skills, expertise and are looking to build your own portfolio of projects; this is just the platform for you to take charge and help us build long lasting relationships with our clients.\nBe a part of our vision of creating a hub of professional, ambitious and energetic team here at Cogniticx.\nStart your relationship with Cogniticx by signing up on our website and share your preferences with us today!

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Something’s Wrong in Traditional Data-Science Consulting: The Imperative of Outcomes Based Pricing

Surviving the Leap of Faith

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