ANALYTICS TRANSLATOR: THE NEW MUST HAVE ROLE 

February 1, 2018
By McKinsey Analytics: Nicolaus Henke, Jordan Levine, and Paul McInerney

The search for vital analytics talent has often focused on data scientists. In this article for Harvard Business Review, we describe the overlooked analytics role that’s even more critical to fill.

At each step of the analytics initiative, the translator has an important role to play.

Step 1: Identifying and prioritizing business use cases
Translator role: Works with business-unit leaders to identify and prioritize problems that analytics is suited to solve.

Step 2: Collecting and preparing data
Translator role: Helps identify the business data needed to produce the most useful insights.

Step 3: Building the analytics engine
Translator role: Ensures the solution solves the business problem in the most efficient and interpretable form for business users.

Step 4: Validating and deriving business implications
Translator role: Synthesizes complex analytics-derived insights into easy-to-understand, actionable recommendations that business users can easily extract and execute on.

Step 5: Implementing the solution and executing on insights
Translator role: Drives adoption among business users.
 
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