Aryng, an analytics training company, is addressing the worsening dearth of qualified talent in the analytics field by holding a workshop designed to give business professionals a crash course in how to use the data they already have to further their business. Workshops like these, when combined with a number of new college degrees and courses centered around analytics, show how big data will dictate the future of IT.

Data Analytics

How do you know when a market has truly migrated into the mainstream? When you start getting dedicated workshops and specialized degrees from prestigious universities. That is exactly what's happening in the realm of business analytics as the once-niche market has exploded in recent years to become an integral part of almost any business.

The Aryng workshops, which last for three days in late February, consist of two days of business analytics and one day of predictive analytics. While a workshop certainly won't provide the skills truly needed to revolutionize a business with analytics, it can provide a base of knowledge that IT professionals can use to start a transformation within a business, which will blossom as the business leaders recognize the competitive advantages that true business intelligence can bring.

On top of workshops and specialized training companies, some universities are starting to get into the analytics game. Both North Carolina State and Northwestern universities offer a master's degree in analytics, and a number of other schools offer courses in analytics through their mathematics department.

Even with this growth in the realm of analytics education, there still looks to be a significant gap between the number of data analysts that will be required, and the number that will be around. As this SF Gate article points out, recent reports on big data show expectations that by 2018 there will be a shortage of over a million managers with the required knowledge to accurately mine large data sets to make effective decisions.

The Future of Massive Data

As the cloud continues to expand, the ability for companies to collect truly immense amounts of data will only expand. While it's fairly easy to store this data, turning it into actionable intelligence is another story and is why so much attention is now being given to analytics.

As this Venture Beat article discusses, storage analytics is one of the five ways that data storage will play a large role in IT profitability in the coming years, and according to this eWeek article, an IBM survey identified storage analytics as one of the five biggest trends of 2012. Basically, storage analytics is the act of taking all that data filling up hard drive space, and turning it into something the company can use to get an edge on their competition.

For midsize businesses, there has never been a better time to start focusing on analytics. While a number of businesses have started looking in big data solutions, many more continue to sit on the sidelines, even as the cloud allows them to amass enormous amounts of information. Businesses that take advantage of this data will be much better positioned to turn a profit in the future, and will have a leg up in the coming years as they can leverage their experience to take advantage of more advances in the analytics field.