What are we actually talking about? How EOS approaches analytics Group-wide.
The problem with buzzwords like “AI” and “analytics” is that everyone has a different understanding of them. To ensure the EOS subsidiaries are not talking at cross purposes, the new Center of Analytics Academy is building a common knowledge base.
- Teams in the EOS subsidiaries sometimes have varying levels of knowledge on topics such as analytics or automation.
- The Center of Analytics Academy is now building a common base.
- This includes a virtual community and centralized training opportunities.
Joachim Göller actually wanted to find out from his colleagues what they would like in a new IT platform. An analytics system that predicts the behavior of defaulting payers by means of artificial intelligence to make faster and better decisions in debt collection. Straightforward, thought Göller: ask about the requirements, develop solutions, test, roll out. However, the feedback was not what he had expected. Rather than answers, he received questions like “Which of our problems lend themselves to this kind of analysis?” Or, “Is there a guideline for this?” All the pages were covered in big question marks.
What they wanted was more knowledge about analytics.
“We quickly got the impression that many people do not understand why such a platform is needed at all,” says Göller, who has been at EOS since 2018. He heads the Center of Analytics (CoA), a unit that works on new information applications. “Our colleagues were very keen to gain more knowledge about the subject of analytics.” The CoA Academy was born.
The idea was to develop a program to impart analytics knowledge throughout all subsidiaries. As a decentralized company without a global IT organization, the levels of knowledge on topics such as analytics, automation and big data varied among the EOS subsidiaries, says Göller. At the same time, there is great strength in the shared knowledge of the EOS Group – after all, it is needed in all the countries and departments where the processes run. “If we were to simply gather all the EOS analysts in Hamburg, the outcome would be less efficient in the end,” says Göller.
EOS CoA Academy: Networking rather than gathering.
“The aim of our Academy is to build a common understanding of analytics and a common vocabulary so we can all work more efficiently,” says Göller. One part of this is the CoA Community, a virtual community made up of all the analysts. In addition to regular web sessions, telephone conferences and online surveys, there are other programs on offer, such as the introductory training course. During this three-day course, a group of four to six analysts establish common basic principles for working with data.
The internship, a four to eight-week work placement at the CoA headquarters in Hamburg, is more intensive. This time is spent working on a specific use case on the job. Patrick Witte, Lead Product Owner in the CoA Team, explains the concept: “Hands-on knowledge and assistance with specific issues”.
The courses on offer are not only aimed at imparting knowledge, however. “We are mainly concerned with enabling our colleagues to look outside the box and to provide them with a network,” says Göller, Head of the CoA. Help to help themselves, in other words. The big idea for the future is to have an international virtual team of data scientists. The CoA Academy will certainly keep changing until then. After all, just like the participants, their analysts are also continuously learning.
More about the profession of a data analyst: What does a data analyst do?
Photo Credits: EOS / Sebastian Vollmert (2), EOS
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