What can real-time data do to your business? Things you cannot imagine.
Data is the new power and the global business community now understands the importance of high-quality, structured data and how they can use this data to make informed, smart business decisions.
A survey by Ocient reveals that 98% of executives agree to increase data analysis in their organizations in the next 1 to 3 years.
However, to fully leverage received data, you need to convert it into a highly structured and linear form. For that, you need to hire a data analyst. The question is how to hire a data analyst.
If you just google, you will come across hundreds of companies and freelancers offering data analytics services. Choosing the right one from the list would be a challenging task.
This blog helps you find and hire the right data analytics company for your requirements. We will discuss all the aspects to choose the right professional data analytics service provider.
How to Hire a Data Analytics Company for Your Business?
We will discuss a step-by-step guide to hire a data analytics company that perfectly suits your business requirements and help leverage raw data for your business growth.
Step 1: Define Your Needs and Data Readiness
Before you start typing on Google- “Best Data Analytics Company”, you need to work internally.
First of all, you need to define your needs and what you are looking for. When you have absolute clarity on what you are looking for, choosing the right data analytics company would be a cakewalk for you.
Don’t approach data analytics companies with vague requirements like I want responsive and comprehensive dashboards or we want AI-powered data analytics services.
Instead, ask questions like, how we can reduce inventory costs by using predictive models. Come up with real-time challenges that you face and you will be able to find the best data analytics partner for your firm.
Define your key performance indicators, such as increasing operational efficiency or attract more customers, or improving your marketing campaigns.
When your objectives are clear and defined, it will be easy for you to find the right potential partner for your data analytics service requirements.
Step 2: Check Your Analytics Maturity
What is your company’s current relationship with data? It is also called analytics maturity and it plays a huge role in choosing the skilled data analysts for your requirements.
There are a total 3 levels of analytics maturity:
- Level 1: Your data is isolated in silos and relies solely on spreadsheets and reporting is done manually. For this level, you will need a data analytics partner that focuses on data engineering to set up a centralized data warehouse, data cleaning, and basic data visualization.
- Level 2: You have centralized data and you also use some advanced Business Intelligence (BI) tools for data analysis. Here, you will need a partner who can build comprehensive data analytics dashboards and statistical modeling.
- Level 3: You have used data forecasting and predicting models. Here, you will need a partner with deep data science and ML expertise to build advanced data analytics models.
Step 3: Data Inventory Check
Where does your data reside now? Is it in your CRM or ERP software or marketing automation platforms, or cloud storage?
Furthermore, define three Vs of big data called Volume (how much data), variety (structured or unstructured), and Velocity (real-time steaming analysis or daily batch processing).
Such data inventory check is crucial to estimate the project scope and complexity. Here, you will be able to choose a partner that meets your project scope.
Step 4: Check Their Proven Expertise and Knowledge
To answer the question- how to hire a data analyst, you need to remember that domain expertise is the key.
You need to look beyond general technical skills and find a data analytics company that is skilled to connect data insights to your specific business goals.
For example, if you belong to eCommerce or healthcare, find out whether the company has relevant experience in the industry or not. It will be wise to hire a company with relevant industry experience and expertise.
A company that has worked with healthcare clients prior, must know about HIPPA or GDPR compliance. Also, they must be aware of the industry challenges, and the key performance indicators.
They will be able to move faster and deliver more relevant solutions compared to a company with no relevant industry experience.
Step 5: Technical Stack Check
The data analytics company you hire must be well-versed with the technology stack and must have a team of experts in different technical streams like programming languages, cloud platforms, BI/Visualization tools, Machine Learning frameworks, etc.
Also, hire a company that follows a tool-agnostic approach to offer you the best data analytics services. It is an approach that determines the technology after understanding your data analytics requirements.
Step 6: Communication and Reporting
Ask the data analytics company about how they communicate. A clear and direct communication between the two parties is a key for success. Most data analytics companies use specific communication tools to communicate with clients.
Also, ask the company whether they operate in your time zone or not. Here too, most companies operate on clients’ time zones.
Regular project reporting is also a crucial thing. Most companies offer daily or weekly reports with micro-details about the project and its progress. We would recommend hiring a data analyst who offers daily reporting.
Step 7: Focus on Actionable Insights
Don’t focus on delivering a dashboard or a model. Ask for actionable insights that you can use in real-time to grow your business. Ask them to deliver high-quality and accurate recommendations that can be used by your non-technical executives.
Choose a data analytics company that can make a clear, concise, and ROI-based data strategy that is easy to follow and brings desired results. An ideal data strategy is a roadmap to address the three most important parameters- technology stack, people, and processes.
Step 8: Scalability and Innovation
With time, your business and data volume will grow. Hire a data analytics company that can scale up your operations when the demand comes. From creating a cloud-based data warehouse architecture to developing advanced predictive models, they should be able to scale up operations without major challenges.
In addition, they must also be innovation-ready people who can incorporate new happenings in the data science industry into their existing data strategies to make them more effective and advanced.
Step 9: Evaluation and Due Diligence
To evaluate the shortlisted companies, you need to follow the steps mentioned below:
Check portfolio: Most data analytics companies have their project portfolio in their websites. If you don’t find one, ask for it and review it thoroughly. Check whether they have extensive industry experience or not. Make a question list from the portfolio and ask questions.
Check Case Studies: Check their website for case studies and review them for measurable ROI. Ask relevant questions related to specific problems and solutions offered. Also, if possible, ask for references to double-check their claims.
Ask for a Detailed Proposal and Statement of Work (SOW): Ask the company to provide a detailed proposal and the statement of work with details like project scope, deliverables, milestones, timelines, resource allocation, etc.
Discuss the Budget in Detail: It is crucial. Sometimes, businesses don’t discuss lengthy budgets and then invite issues later. Don’t make this mistake. Discuss in-length about the budget, including the payment frequencies and modes.
Conclusion
This blog answers your questionc-how to hire a data analyst in detail. We have covered almost all aspects of the hiring process to give you a 360-degree view to hire the best data analytics company for your business.
Data is the new gold and it helps businesses reshape their operations by leveraging highly accurate actionable insights. Ensure that you choose the best data analytics company that perfectly meets your requirements and budget.
