A Data Scientist's Thoughts on Artificial Intelligence, Business, and the Future

A Data Scientist's Thoughts on Artificial Intelligence, Business, and the Future

Interview

A Data Scientist's Thoughts on Artificial Intelligence, Business, and the Future

In this interview, David Cieslak, PhD, the Chief Data Scientist at Aunalytics, describes complex analytics concepts such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning, and explains how they are useful for businesses today—and will continue to be in the future. David has been with Aunalytics since its inception and leads its Innovation Lab in the development and delivery of complex algorithms designed to solve business problems in the manufacturing/supply chain, financial, healthcare, and media sectors.


Do you have the tools and talent to set your organization up for analytics success?

Do you have the tools and talent to set your organization up for analytics success?

Most business leaders would agree: data is a valuable asset. Having up-to-date, accurate data with which to make data-driven decisions currently gives organizations an edge, but eventually, this will become table stakes in most industries, simply to remain competitive. However, an up-front investment in a strong technical foundation and a shift to embrace analytics culture throughout the organization are required to achieve analytics success.

Unfortunately, there are many challenges to overcome when trying to bring siloed and dirty data from multiple sources across your business to a single place to be analyzed, including a lack of time and manpower, and the need for data points that don’t currently exist, to name a few. Using data analytics, it becomes possible to better optimize your business by discovering operational efficiencies, reducing costs, tracking customer trends across your organization, and making strategic decisions based on predictive data models. Is partnering with analytics experts the best choice for mid-sized institutions, or should you hire Full-Time Employees (FTEs) to build and manage your data?

There are multiple ways an analytics platform could be created—we’re going to look at two today.

Build it yourself

The first is choosing to create a custom data platform. While not a bad choice, it could take a FTE years to create your analytics platform—if it’s ever finished. An engineer hired to build a custom platform may leave you high and dry with no one to step in to help. Something like this could cost your business months—or even years—of lost money and productivity, leaving you with nothing to show for your platform building efforts.

Even if your data engineer remains with your business, there are other challenges you may encounter. It can be difficult for a single FTE to stay up to date on the newest technological advances and upgrades. Especially when that person is not only expected to clean and update information on thousands of data records, but also take care of system and software updates, keep up with changing trends in the analytics world, and more. A lack of manpower can also make tasks like finding trends in your data nearly impossible, as data processing may be far behind where your most recent and relevant business analytics can be found.

When it comes to advanced analytics, you would need to find and hire additional employees who are skilled in advanced data analytics, machine learning, and AI techniques, and ideally, familiar with your industry. This can be easier said than done. Data scientists, like many in the technology field, are in high demand, and may be difficult to find and hire in smaller geographical markets.

Work with a partner

A different option is working with a trusted technology partner who brings data analytics expertise straight to you. Partnering with an end-to-end provider often saves your company money while allowing someone else to take care of the nitty gritty that goes into creating reports, graphs, charts, and more. Additionally, you are guaranteed to have access to the team you need to build algorithms and find insights in your data. A partner will consistently provide you with the right tools, talent, and resources, while supporting you the entire way. But how could an Analytics as a Service partner help you find the true value of your data?

A good partner will be able to offer the required resources to achieve analytics success—a foundational data platform, automated data management, access to data experts, and data delivery methods such as relevant and actionable dashboards and reports. Imagine having a regular report, generated overnight, every night, for you to review first thing in the morning—without having to invest in many new FTEs and years of development time.

When looking for a data analytics partner, all the things above are important for creating a successful partnership that leads to analytics success. Aunalytics provides data processing and analytics help and would never expect you to go it alone. When you hire us, you hire data scientists, data engineers, and data analysts, reducing the need for multiple expensive FTEs. By having access to a team of data experts by your side, your business can find itself enabled to make better, faster, and smarter decisions based on consistent, real-time data.


23 MNCU ACCELERATE

ACCELERATE 23 - Minnesota Credit Union League

April 13 - 14, 2023

ACCELERATE 23 - Minnesota Credit Union League

Radisson Blu MOA, Bloomington, MN

Aunalytics to attend ACCELERATE 23 as a Silver Sponsor

Aunalytics is excited to attend the Minnesota Credit Union League’s annual conference, ACCELERATE 23 in Bloomington, MN. Representatives from Aunalytics will be speaking with attendees and presenting the Daybreak™ for Financial Services solution at their exhibit booth. Daybreak enables credit unions to more effectively identify and deliver new services and solutions so they can better compete with large national banks through AI and advanced analytics. Financial institutions can use these AI-driven insights to improve customer and member engagement and increase wallet share.

23 MNCU ACCELERATE

CULytics 2023 Summit

2023 CULytics Summit

April 10-13, 2023

2023 CULytics Summit

Microsoft Conference Center, Redmond, WA

Aunalytics to attend and speak at the 2023 CULytics Summit in Redmond, WA

Aunalytics is thrilled to attend and speak at the 2023 CULytics Summit—in-person for the first time after a three year hiatus! Aunalytics is excited to participate in two speaking sessions. Ryan Wilson, VP, Client Relationships, will be presenting a demo of the Daybreak™ for Financial Services solution which enables credit unions to more effectively identify and deliver new services and solutions so they can better compete with large national banks. Meanwhile, Taylor Oake, Account Executive – Enterprise Analytics, will be joining Brent Hepner of 3Rivers FCU to present the case study, “Discovering Business Value Through AI-Powered Business Intelligence & Predictive Analytics: A Successful Partnership.”

CULytics 2023 Summit

Ohio CUL InVest48

Ohio Credit Union League InVest48

April 3-5, 2023

Ohio Credit Union League InVest48

Hilton Downtown Columbus Tower, Columbus, OH

Aunalytics to attend InVest48, the Ohio Credit Union League's Annual Conference

Aunalytics is pleased to attend InVest48, the annual conference of the Ohio Credit Union League. Aunalytics will be meeting with attendees and giving demos at booth #416. Representatives from Aunalytics will be educating attendees on how financial institutions can use AI-driven insights to improve customer and member engagement and increase wallet share. Event attendees can also learn more about the Daybreak™ for Financial Services solution which enables credit unions to more effectively identify and deliver new services and solutions so they can better compete with large national banks.

Ohio CUL InVest48

Fintech Meetup 2023

2023 Fintech Meetup

March 19-22, 2023

Fintech Meetup 2023

Aria, Las Vegas, NV

Aunalytics to attend the 2023 Fintech Meetup in Las Vegas as Bronze Sponsor

Aunalytics is excited to attend the 2023 Fintech Meetup in Las Vegas, Nevada. Aunalytics will be meeting with attendees and giving demos at booth SC1 on how financial institutions can use AI-driven insights to improve customer and member engagement and increase wallet share. Event attendees can learn more about the Daybreak™ for Financial Services solution which enables community banks and credit unions to more effectively identify and deliver new services and solutions so they can better compete with large national banks.

Fintech Meetup 2023

Customer Intelligence Insights are Reliant on Accurate Data

It’s 10pm, do you know where your customer data is?

Jokes aside, is your data organized in a form that you can easily use, review, and make critical business decisions from? Or is disorganized data slowing down your decision-making and preventing your organization from utilizing customer intelligence to enhance the customer experience and grow your business?

Customer intelligence data (3)
Improved Enterprise Data Management Enables Customer Intelligence Analytics

In many organizations, heaps of data are coming in from multiple sources, into and out of multiple clouds and departments, with varying degrees of accuracy. This makes decision-making based on customer intelligence difficult. When your data is not cleansed, you may have multiple records for the same person, spread across your databases. It is essential for your digital maturity process to include optimizing enterprise data management—finding all disparate data, cleansing, and aggregating it, and creating a single, correct client record—your single source of truth.

With enterprise data management and a robust data analytics platform working together, your customer data and prospect lists become more reliable, you save money on marketing materials, and, with the right analytics platform, can more easily implement AI solutions to send the right offer to the right customer at the right time. An analytics platform can mean taking your client records and improving them, their data, and your ability to make data-driven decisions about your prospects’ and customers’ needs.

A Customer Intelligence Analytics Database, like Aunalytics’ Daybreak Analytics Database, not only provides daily insights, compiled overnight and ready for you first thing in the morning, but also gives you access to a robust data platform and actionable industry-relevant smart features to enable various analytics solutions, helping you create a strategy that will lead to positive outcomes for your customers. With a streamlined system for your organization to find, access, store, and manage your data, along with an analytics platform bringing data to your fingertips, you don’t have to worry about which version of a client record you will find today, which version of the client’s name is what she prefers to go by, or what the correct version of her address is.

A side-by-side approach with a technology partner is the best way to access tools like Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), predictive analytics, and a team of experts by your side to provide support and assist you every step of the way. Look for a provider who supports an end-to-end process, making sure you don’t get stuck in the middle and left hung out to dry when making your journey to better enterprise data management, analytics, and, ultimately, digital maturity.