According to the latest PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) AI Predictions survey, companies’ AI investments are on the rise. More than half of the respondents have “accelerated their AI approach”, with the most common changes including new uses for AI (40%) and increased AI investment (40%).
With more AI investment, there is a surging demand for relevant talents like data analysts and technologists with a knowledge of finance. All the IT-related words – AI, data, technology, FinTech etc. – may cause one to think that the talents are all in the computer science sector, but this misses one important factor: the reason they are needed is for growing businesses.
That is to say, talents nowadays cannot be solely specialised in one aspect. While data professionals should equip themselves with business knowledge to know how businesses operate, business executives should enhance their data literacy to learn how and what can drive businesses.
This may cause someone to rethink their career path. Some may consider pursuing a postgraduate degree in a different field to acquire new knowledge and bring their career to another level. However, it may not be necessary to completely pivot from your original sector. Some business schools offer data-analytics or AI-related programmes that strike a good balance between business and technology, which exactly address the market’s – or even the world’s – needs.
The world is more virtual, and more connected, than ever.
When enterprises nowadays cannot interact with users or customers physically or read their facial expressions, how can they understand the users’ journey and experiences to adjust their products and strategies? They read data. With more data generated from increasing e-commerce activities, more people who can interpret data and transform this into business actions are needed. Data-literacy can also help bridge the gap among hard data and different business functions, for example, sales and marketing, and provide historic analyses for data-driven decision making.
With the enhanced use of technologies, be it for communicating with friend and families, or for booking services and products, or for simply planning commuting routes to avoid heavy traffic and maintain social distancing, all these data have actually accelerated the smart city developments around the world that will help build smarter and more sustainable cities in which people can work and live. Professionals with effective data analytic skills are therefore required to undertake predictive analysis and provide solutions even before problems arise.
The HKBU School of Business is one of the only 1% of business schools worldwide with triple accreditations by the three leading accreditation bodies – AACSB, EQUIS, and AMBA. The two highly sought-after postgraduate programmes, namely the Master of Science in Data Analytics and Business Economics (MScDABE) and the Master of Science in Finance (Fintech and Financial Analytics) (MScFIN), are supported by world-renowned tech giants and finance gurus including Tencent, Deloitte, BNP Paribas and others.
