Gulf workers’ top data skills least utilized by employers

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  • A survey says making full use of the analytic expertise core requirement for the Gulf to continue competing globally.

  • 72 percent data workers able to generate additional revenue through data but 61 percent limited to creating static reports.

Dubai: Gulf businesses hire workers with the skills, desire, knowledge and analytical expertise for success, but the same businesses are not drawing on this deep well of talent, a survey has said.

The survey conducted by YouGov and commissioned by Alteryx, an analytics automation company, found that nearly two thirds of data workers in large companies of the UAE and Saudi Arabia possess the advanced analytic skills needed to deliver business insights using descriptive (57 percent), prescriptive (61 percent) and predictive (60 percent) analytics.

Yet despite this skillset, only 28 percent of workers use these talents to unlock business benefits such as greater efficiency, or revenue growth through creating data models.

While data driven insights have eluded many companies due to a lack of skilled data workers, businesses across the Gulf are falling behind because they are underutilizing the talent of those in the workforce.

Alan Jacobson, Chief Data and Analytics Officer at Alteryx, said, “Despite the inherent value of data-led decision making, there is a critical disconnect between the expertise we see in the Gulf and the value these employees are able to bring to both driving new strategies and further optimizing the business to run smarter.”

Making full use of the analytic expertise available is a core requirement for the Gulf to continue competing on a global stage. Despite the majority of data workers (72 percent) being able to generate additional revenue through data, these experts are often limited to creating static reports (61 percent). Just 35 percent use their skills to create exploratory analyses, and only 37 percent use data to identify future outcomes based on historical data through predictive analytics.

About 89 percent data workers in the Gulf currently rank their skills as ‘above average’, and report they are given the time (61 percent) training (60 percent), and tools (59 percent) to succeed. Why then, in an environment where workers are ready and able to help businesses drive value from data and analytics are so few empowered to take full advantage of these skills?

While not every data worker needs to become a fully-fledged data scientist, by ensuring that these specialists are empowered to deliver insights across business functions, organizations can increase their transformation efforts with pre-existing resource and thrive in an increasingly data-rich environment.

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