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I know a mid-level manager at a Fortune 100 company. Somewhere up the management chain, someone read an article about how data science is the hot new thing tha
by Mc91 8y ago
I know a mid-level manager at a Fortune 100 company. Somewhere up the management chain, someone read an article about how data science is the hot new thing that your company has to be doing or it will have missed the boat. So word was sent down that their next project was to do data science. So now they are launching a data science project to analyze their business data, which this manager is overseeing. They're hiring data scientists and all that entails. It doesn't come from a business requirement or some organically generated need, top management just wants to be able to say their company is using data science if they're asked about it.
- tormeh 8y agoThat's unfair. "Not missing the boat" is a natural need for a company. Everyone with an MBA has studied companies that missed the boat. Throwing some money at various new fads isn't necessarily irrational.
- ItsMe000001 8y agoNevertheless, it does make one reconsider million dollar compensation packages if all those guys can come up with is to deploy randomness. Either they have foresight and a plan or they don't. Either way is fine, but only the first option supports the million dollar salaries for executives. If they are just like any other mortal... they didn't even do anything to identify new trends, they just followed what was in the major business magazines.
- timdellinger 8y agoI actually see this as a smart move in the context of a Fortune 100 company. It's often a good idea to build something (in this case, a data science capability) before you need it, so that when you do need it, it's already up and running. Also: there's value in giving any new technology a test drive.
- solomatov 8y agoThat's normal. The company to experiment with data science and understand what can be done with it on a low risk project.