Recession. How scary can this word be? People around the world dread this term; they relate recession to mass layoffs. The global pandemic has hit the economy worldwide hard, which has led to recession. People are losing jobs, and those who have not are just waiting for it to happen to them too. These are tough times, and people in the data science and analytics industry are worried if they will get affected also?

In the past few years, ‘data science,’ ‘machine learning,’ ‘artificial intelligence’ have become buzz words. Every company has been hiring and investing in building data science teams. Just before the pandemic, it had started to look that the field is invincible.

Is it?

Is data science really immune to recession?

Well, the truth is that this crisis will take everyone down with it.

The data science and analytics fields are not immune to recession. Like any other industry, recession will have an impact on data science field as well. Can any industry or organization really escape from the clutches of recession? Howsoever hard it may be, one thing we have to accept is that data science and analytics as a profession is not invincible.

1. How will companies deal with investments during the recession?

Business leaders face a hard time managing their finances during the recession. They have to figure out:

⦁ where to invest money
⦁ where to make budget cuts
⦁ which part of the business is dispensable, and,
⦁ what part a company just cannot do without?

Companies have to turn to cost-cutting during a recession. Since data scientists and analysts are costly, businesses who are unaware of their benefits, cut them off first. These companies don’t know how to leverage data science and analytics to its best use. They turn to intuition and gut feeling to make business decisions. How reliable they are, only time will tell.

Whereas companies who know how to utilize the data scientists and analytics teams optimally, know a sure shot way to deal with whatever may come their way. They have a higher chance of survival as compared to those who shun data scientists and analysts during these times.

In a nutshell, it’s more dependent on the company’s vision than a data science as a profession. If a company has thought-through thoroughly and has a clear vision of how and where to leverage the data science team, chances of survival are significantly higher.

If you have limited money to invest, you will always invest in a known territory.

2. Once you’re in a data-driven culture, the data science team will be as important as any other, if not more

Companies that relied on data-driven culture pre-pandemic will continue to rely on it during the recession too. A data scientist or analyst’s value to the overall development of the business is not clearly visible as it doesn’t directly affect the decision making. It is tough to measure a data scientist’s contribution to the firm. But, to guide a company smoothly through the recession, it would need prescriptive analysis and insights generated by the data science team.

An analytically mature organization would appreciate a data scientist or analyst even more during the recession. In these hard times, data scientists are going to help organizations optimize their cost using sophisticated models and algorithms. Marketing budgets are usually the first ones to face the axe during any such situation. In a situation where pressure on the organization is high to sustain and grow, if possible, data science can help optimize the spending on different channels and improve customer acquisition.

3. Digital transformation, catalyzed by remote working, to create more analytics jobs

Given that more and more companies are going digital and looking for tech-based solutions, data will grow faster than anticipated. With the increase in data generation, there will also be an increase in the requirement of people to analyze, monetize, and optimize it. Data Science and Analytics isn’t a wave that will pass; it is here to stay. Data Scientists and analysts help businesses stay afloat and mitigate through uncertain environments. We don’t expect the buzz around analytics and data science abilities to go bust that soon. In fact, we believe the field to be resilient and pick up the pace soon as the market conditions improve. With other sectors widely recognizing the benefits of data science and analytics, we can only imagine how they will leverage it.

4. Transition to full-stack data scientist

Recession and slow-down in the economy will result in tighter budgets for all the teams, not just data science. In such a scenario, expectations from data scientists will evolve and they would be expected to carry out much than just building models. Data scientists will have to evolve from ‘just data scientists’ to ‘full-stack data scientists’ where they are involved in end-to-end building and deployment of models. Similar was the case with developers a few years ago, companies wanted to have ‘full-stack engineers’ rather than just ‘back-end engineers’ or ‘front-end engineers’ . But this does not mean every one will be expected to be a full-stack engineer. Organizations which are mature and have developed data-driven culture will still value data scientists for their core value generation.

In conclusion, we could say that Data Science and Analytics aren’t immune to recession, but they are comparatively more resilient than other areas. In fact, the crisis has allowed these people to showcase their skills and make the companies realize the impact they have on a company’s functioning. This will increase the demand for data scientists and analysts going forward. recession will pass, but the need for a data scientist or analyst will continue, though it might be slower than before.

Read AI Bytes by AI Monks on stay on top of analytics and data science industry insights.