In order for companies to a build data focused culture, employees need to ramp up their data literacy by using self-service tools and educational courses
The collection and analyzation of data to drive a company’s long-term growth is nothing new. But given that we generate 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day, data analytics is non-negotiable for any company looking to achieve their long-term goals. The tricky part comes when a company wants to ramp up their data efforts, but can’t afford the $95,000 entry level salary of a data scientist let alone the $157,000 median salary of an experienced one. This isn’t even factoring in a Chief Data Officer.
Can the show go on without dedicated data team steering the ship? Kind of. Data is complex. A team will make it easier to build a healthy data foundation and accelerate a company’s growth. So, how can companies build competent data teams without significant monetary investments?
It’s a two-pronged approach that needs to occur simultaneously. Companies need to build data-focused cultures, and employees need to be data literate. When employees understand the data available to them, what it means, and how they can leverage it to inform their daily roles, the entire organization benefits. But to cultivate such a culture, employees need to ramp up their data literacy, through a combination of self-service tools educational courses.
In the case of education, here are five top courses for employees to get acquainted with data (as well as three more advances resources they can take next).
Getting Started
Google Analytics for Beginners
Rating 4.4 (1,534 ratings)
11,143 students enrolled
A commonly used platform like Google Analytics probably wasn’t what you were associating with data literate courses, but if your key team members don’t know how to use GA to the fullest of its abilities, you shouldn’t throw the rest of the course list at them. This course is just a short 1.5 hour on-demand video that’ll give team members hands-on experience with GA, including campaign tagging, documenting insights, making data-driven decisions, loading demo data, and more.
SQL for Newbs: Data Analysis for Beginners
Rating 4.2 (5,903 ratings)
38,489 students enrolled
Dubbed the “course you’ll actually finish,” SQL for Newbs, as the name suggests, caters to those with no previous technical abilities. Through 3.5 hours of on-demand video, students will learn valuable skills to translate immediately to their day-to-day roles, like analyzing user behavior, finding actionable business insights, measuring and tracking marketing efforts, and clarifying their decision making. After completing the course your employees will be able to find value in data beyond tools like Google Analytics.
Business Analysis Fundamentals – 2018
Rating 4.5 (4,763 ratings)
20,818 students enrolled
For some employees, it might not be enough to analyze user behaviors and track the effectiveness of specific campaigns. Business Analysis Fundamentals takes learners through the roles and tasks of a business analyst, giving them the practical knowledge to initiate business analysis projects. Users will learn modeling techniques, how to remove ambiguities from initiatives and better understand the Software Development Life Cycles so crucial in today’s business world.
Introduction to Process Modeling
Rating 4.3 (571 ratings)
3,694 students enrolled
Collecting and analyzing data shouldn’t just inform a company about their customers; it should improve the way the organization operates as a whole. That’s what makes an Introduction to Process Modeling class so valuable. Enroll organizational decision-makers and department leads in this course to empower them to improve or re-engineer broken internal processes and manage them better going forward.
Statistics for Business Analysts A-Z
Rating 4.4 (2,447 ratings)
17,115 students enrolled
If you can’t afford a data scientist, take the most technically savvy team member you have and morph them into a data scientist in the making. Through an info-packed seven hours of on-demand video, learners with just basic knowledge of high school math can understand the normal distribution, standard deviation, sampling distribution, Central Limit Theorem, among other methods, and how to apply them in real-world settings.
Deep Dive Courses for Advanced Employees
- Machine Learning A-Z: Hands-On Python & R In Data Science
- Deep Learning A-Z: Hands-On Artificial Neural Networks
- Artificial Intelligence A-Z: Learn How to Build an AI
Developing data initiatives that improve your business’ health won’t be easy without a team of professionals or the use of AI-driven data tools, but there’s no reason to sit idle because of these barriers. Invest in the cost-friendly courses above to start educating your integral leaders and decision-makers for a brighter, more information-rich tomorrow.
