Ian Deming said the above during his extensive career as statistician, professor, author, lecturer and consultant. Deming is best known for his work with the Japanese after WWII, leading to the Japanese Miracle between 1950 and 1960, becoming the second most powerful economy in less than a decade. Deming has always had a scientific approach, stating that marketing is not "sales", but rather the science of knowing what people who buy your product repeatedly think of that product and whether they will buy it again, and why.
If it would be so easy, what is holding us back? With the easy access to large amounts of data surely we should be able to control our destiny by now?
The theory of perception is fundamental in explaining this. One of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, Ludwig Wittgenstein, was fascinated by the realisation that our interpretation could alter the nature of data. The rock solid foundations of empirical knowledge were shaking at the very core. The Duck-Rabbit drawing is often used to explain this concept. One can see the beak of a duck, but one can also interpret the same lines as the ears of a rabbit.
To ensure we don't fall in the trap of the theory of perception, it is important to analyse data through extensive collaboration, to ensure all relevant angles and views are tried and tested. These days, business technology solutions like business intelligence and enterprise content management systems, can facilitate this process tremendously.
The role of the data scientist
To some it is magic, to others it is the application of empirically acquired knowledge about real life entities and concepts through extensive collaboration. Science is just a particularly efficient method of obtaining knowledge. A data scientist is a social scientist backed up by more data. They can tell us stories about how to translate patterns and trends in data into proper understanding of possible ways to improve quality and achieve efficiencies. This could improve the competitiveness of a nation, as Deming showed the world with Japan. A data scientist takes an objective angle to describing human behaviour.
Data scientists have to work on improving efficiencies (doing things right) and effectiveness (doing the right things). Data is one of the key ingredients to achieve these goals. For instance, in the fleet management and mining industries we are a factor 10 less efficient than benchmarks in overseas countries. Economies and organisation always face the some challenge: how can we achieve more with our scarce resources.
In fleet management the US benchmark is to service 200 vehicles on average per employee, whereas the South African average hovers around 20 vehicles on average per employee. In mining certain process steps require roughly 180 people, compared to approximately 18 people for similar processes in Scandinavian mining houses.
The implementation of business technology solutions like ERP, business intelligence and enterprise content management systems, together with data scientists collaborating around the data surrounding these platforms, can greatly improve these efficiencies.
Erwin Bisschops studied organisational strategy and social sciences at the University of Tilburg in The Netherlands. He works at Karabina Solutions as a Principal Lead.
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