Vishranth Chandrashekar

Capstone project during the program was a great learning experience and helped me immensely during my statistical modeling projects.

What were you doing before you enrolled to the PGPBA program?

I was working with Capgemini Consulting with the analytics division specific to Social Media Analytics and Marketing Analytics. My role involved working on projects that covered sentiment analysis, insight generation, story boarding, other social media metrics reporting, etc.

What made you opt for the Great Learning Analytics program?

I wanted to take up a wider role into analytics and explore other streams of analytics. My MBA specialization was into retail and marketing and I was keen to explore retail analytics. Though, I had a one semester course in Statistics during MBA, still I wanted to gain a stronger hold in this subject. Great Lakes’ brand name and faculty were my obvious reasons to opt for this program.

What would you identify as your TOP 3 takeaways from the program?

The one year that I spent in the Great Learning analytics program was a fantastic learning experience. My top 3 takeaways from the program would include: 1) Consistent learning through assignments and online learning mode, 2) Different perspectives that I could gain by interacting with the various industry leaders who participated through guest lectures and workshops, 3) Self paced online learning videos and the lab where I could practice a plethora of assignments and examples.

How did you benefit from the industry exposure that you would have gained in the analytics program?

We were exposed to various analytical techniques followed in the industry with respect to various domains. Various thumb rules followed in the industry were taught to us. The capstone project was a great learning experience which made our foundation strong to pursue statistical modeling projects.

Could you share your experiences where you have actually applied analytics skills to solve the real-time business problems?

There are many instances where I have applied analytics skills to solve real business problems. To name a few would be Trade Promotions effectiveness. The methodology to come up with a ROI figure was quite challenging. Then, Attrition modeling is another area where I have worked on. The challenge was to come up with a robust predictive model for the purpose of reducing student attrition in a college in US.

Any pearls of wisdom for aspiring data analysts/business analysts?

If you are an aspiring analytics professional, it is paramount that you develop a problem-solving approach. A good starting point would be to relate daily life instances with numbers and analyze and explore.

Through the course of the PGPBA program, which faculty inspired you the most and why?

We were fortunate to learn from and guided by a lot of excellent faculty from Great Lakes and the industry. If I were to name a few – Shailesh Sir, Bappa Sir, PK Vishwanathan, Dr Ray – are my favorites because of their lucid style of teaching that involved extensive examples.