As the consumer goods industry dives deeper into leveraging data and analytics to inform its business strategies, companies are looking to hire talent with niche skills that support these initiatives. AI and analytics vendor Fractal has partnered with Coursera, online learning platform, to help individuals acquire these skills.
The companies introduced a new Data Science Professional Certificate, which teaches participants the skills necessary for an entry-level data scientist role.
The eight-course program will include sessions on Python, SQL, Power BI, machine learning, and more, moving beyond operational knowledge. It is open to anyone regardless of prior experience or skills.
Srikanth Velamakanni, co-founder, group chief executive and vice chairman of Fractal, said that in order to be successful, people will need to adapt and learn to learn.
"In this age of AI, half-life of knowledge is shrinking rapidly," added Velamakanni. “This certificate will help learners master the basics of data science and power enterprise decision-making."
Coursera chief content officer Marni Baker Stein said Fractal Analytics will prioritize the credential when evaluating job candidates.
Earlier this year, CGT predicted that data science-related jobs would grow in popularity in the next several years, naming VP of Decision Intelligence as a potential job title we may see emerge.
Colgate-Palmolive, for example, is currently exploring the future of decision intelligence and what new roles will be required to support it. The company is already democratizing analytics across the enterprise by investing in supply chain analytics engineers for a dedicated analytics catalyst team, and also a coach to lead them.