Data as Fuel and Analytics as Engine of the Digital Transformation: Demystication, Future Digital Skills and their Impact on Education at the University of Geneva

Data as Fuel and Analytics as
Engine of the Digital Transformation
Demystiﬁcation, Future Digital Skills and their
Impact on Education at the University of Geneva
Prof. Dr. Diego Kuonen, CStat PStat CSci
Statoo Consulting & GSEM, RCS, University of Geneva, Switzerland
@DiegoKuonen + kuonen@statoo.com + Diego.Kuonen@unige.ch
‘ITU-Academia Partnership Meeting’, Budapest, Hungary — September 19, 2017

About myself (about.me/DiegoKuonen)
PhD in Statistics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland.
MSc in Mathematics, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland.
• CStat (‘Chartered Statistician’), Royal Statistical Society, UK.
• PStat (‘Accredited Professional Statistician’), American Statistical Association, USA.
• CSci (‘Chartered Scientist’), Science Council, UK.
• Elected Member, International Statistical Institute, NL.
• Senior Member, American Society for Quality, USA.
• President of the Swiss Statistical Society (2009-2015).
Founder, CEO & CAO, Statoo Consulting, Switzerland (since 2001).
Professor of Data Science, Research Center for Statistics (RCS), Geneva School of Economics
and Management (GSEM), University of Geneva, Switzerland (since 2016).
Founding Director of GSEM’s new MSc in Business Analytics program (started fall 2017).
Principal Scientific and Strategic Big Data Analytics Advisor for the Directorate and Board of
Management, Swiss Federal Statistical Office (FSO), Neuchâtel, Switzerland (since 2016).
Copyright c 2017, Statoo Consulting, Switzerland. All rights reserved. 2

‘In God we trust; all others must bring data.’
W. Edwards Deming

Demystifying ‘big data’: the ‘ﬁve Vs’ of (big) data
‘Volume’ (‘data at rest’), ‘Variety’ (‘mixed data’) and ‘Velocity’ (‘data in
motion’) are the ‘essential’ characteristics of (big) data;
‘Veracity’ (‘trust in data’) and ‘Value’ (‘usefulness of data’) are the
‘qualiﬁcation for use’ characteristics of (big) data.

‘The data revolution is giving the world powerful
tools that can help usher in a more sustainable
future.’
Ban Ki-moon, eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations, August 29, 2014

‘Data is part of Switzerland’s infrastructure, such as
road, railways and power networks, and is of great
value. The government and the economy are obliged
to generate added value from these data.’
digitalswitzerland, November 22, 2016
Source: digitalswitzerland’s ‘Digital Manifesto for Switzerland’ (digitalswitzerland.com).

Demystifying the ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT)
• IoT is about data, not things!
The ‘ﬁve Vs’ of (IoT) data:

‘Data is rapidly becoming the lifeblood of the global
economy. It represents a key new type of economic
asset. Those that know how to use it have a decisive
competitive advantage in this interconnected world ...
— often leaving decades-old competitors behind.’
European Political Strategy Centre (EPSC), January 2017
Source: EPSC, Enter the Data Economy: EU Policies for a Thriving Data Ecosystem, EPSC
Strategic Notes, Issue 21, January 11, 2017 (goo.gl/RAeota).

‘Data are not taken for museum purposes; they are
taken as a basis for doing something. If nothing is to
be done with the data, then there is no use in
collecting any. The ultimate purpose of taking data
is to provide a basis for action or a recommendation
for action.’
W. Edwards Deming, 1942
Data are the fuel and analytics, i.e. ‘learning from data’, is the engine of the
digital transformation and the related data revolution!

• The largest and most basic ‘need’ in the analytics hierarchy is the ‘data pedigree’
(goo.gl/pVYXmj):
Data should be treated as a key strategic asset, so ensuring their veracity
becomes imperative!

• Statistics, (big) data analytics, data science, machine learning and artiﬁcial (or
machine) intelligence are aids to thinking and not replacements for it!
They should be envisaged to complement and augment humans, not replacements
for it!
Nowadays, with the digital transformation and the related data revolution, humans
need to augment their strengths to become more ‘powerful’: by automating any
routinisable work and by focusing on their core competences.

Digital skills — ‘Hard and soft skills to work with data’
Source: European Commission, Open Data Maturity in Europe 2016, Figure 32, October 2016 (goo.gl/WPHR54).

‘Digital strategies ... go beyond the technologies
themselves. ... They target improvements in
innovation, decision making and, ultimately,
transforming how the business works.’
Gerald C. Kane, Doug Palmer, Anh N. Phillips, David Kiron and Natasha Buckley, 2015
Source: Kane, G. C., Palmer, D., Phillips, A. N., Kiron, D. & Buckley, N. (2015). Strategy, not technology,
drives digital transformation. MIT Sloan Management Review (goo.gl/Dkb96o).

GSEM’s ‘MSc in Business Analytics’ (started today!)
• Around the unique strengths of different GSEM institutes, i.e. information sciences
(ISI), management (IoM) and statistics (RCS), the GSEM at the University of Geneva
has defined a new master programme as a strategic, long-term initiative.
• Being at the intersection between statistics, data science and management,
business analytics seeks to inform strategic decision making and to optimise
complex organisational processes.
• The ‘MSc in Business Analytics’ (120 ECTS) aims to
support students to manage, analyse and use data in strategic, tactical and
operational decision making under uncertainty;
prepare students for an efficient leadership within the digital transformation to
create value for businesses and society;
bridge the gap between university education and professional needs.

Have you been Statooed & GSEMed?
Prof. Dr. Diego Kuonen, CStat PStat CSci
Statoo Consulting RCS, GSEM, University of Geneva
Morgenstrasse 129 Bd du Pont-d’Arve 40
3018 Berne 1211 Geneva 4
Switzerland
email kuonen@statoo.com Diego.Kuonen@unige.ch
web www.statoo.info gsem.unige.ch/rcs/kuonen
@DiegoKuonen
Code: ‘ITU-Academia.Digital.09.2017/MyPresentation’. Typesetting: LATEX, version 2 . PDF producer: pdfTEX, version 3.141592-1.40.3-2.2 (Web2C 7.5.6).
Compilation date: 07.09.2017.

Data as Fuel and Analytics as Engine of the Digital Transformation: Demystication, Future Digital Skills and their Impact on Education at the University of Geneva

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