Amit Madan

I did not have to disrupt my professional commitments as the program was offered over weekends and everyone looked forward to the next campus rotation.

For the benefit of our readers, could you tell us a little more about your profile and experience?

I have been into Business Development in a B2B set up for the last 14 years of my career. I had the opportunity to kick start business operations for my employer way back in 2001. By virtue of this opportunity, I ve had the fortune of running a start-up and scaling it from nothing to over USD 6 million in top line revenue in India.

What made you opt for the Great Learning Analytics program?

I work for the Electronics Manufacturing Industry and in our industry, people often talk about preventive maintenance. However, lately we have been asked whether we could do predictive maintenance? Since this came from some of the big clients, it triggered the need to develop an expertise in this area and I decided to take the plunge to experience it first-hand. The choice of Great Learning program over several others was a simple decision as this program allowed a blend of practical industry exposure and real life capstone project interspersed with domain knowledge through eminent faculty members and industry guests alike. Moreover, assignment led assessment approach and a very robust LMS provided was thoroughly a rewarding experience. Importantly, I did not have to disrupt my professional commitments as the program was offered over weekends and everyone looked forward to the next campus rotation.

What would you say were your TOP 3 takeaways from the PGPBA program?

Capstone, Capstone and Capstone. Since, I had over a decade of professional experience; I possessed a fairly good understanding of the functional subjects. However, it is the capstone project that brought the best out of everyone and I myself worked on a credit card scoring model using SAS university edition. Besides, both the faculty members as well as the project mentor were easily approachable for clarification of doubts.

How did Industry exposure during the course assist you in building your competence in analytics?

The industry exposure helped (a) in getting to know the right fit for each participant as the class participants had a fair bit of heterogeneity among them. (b) Understand various nuances of the analytics path-work including the most popular kinds of projects being undertaken in the analytics industry. The industry exposure offered a very practical approach currently put to practice across various domains.

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

I am working on a proof of concept for manufacturing analytics related to electronics manufacturing industry. Once this is established, I will work towards data collection and aim to work on a predictive maintenance model for predicting machine failure.

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

Data is all pervasive and Omni-potent; it is the insights underlying it that make or mar a business. My piece on this is to work with the raw data in any given context and make use of both business domain knowledge as well as analytics tools to cull out those insights that do not appear apparent from raw data. Do keep in mind that behind every analytics project, the ultimate aim is to be able to demonstrate the dollar impact to the client. That single minded focus will not let an analyst go astray.

What are your views or insights on the impact of analytics to businesses?

My scant exposure to analytics is limited to academic pursuits apart from growing opportunities in manufacturing analytics vis-vis my industry. That said analytics is pervading virtually all walks of life what with sensor data making it amenable for an analytics led approach for drawing insights to data streaming from social media for web & text analytics. In the current state, it seems to me that adoption of analytics is rapidly growing in BFSI industry for credit risk scoring, attrition rate modelling, exposure at default and loss given default. Similarly, analytics is gaining good traction in the telecom industry for expense reduction initiatives, attrition modelling etc.

Which course did you enjoy the most?

I enjoyed Financial Risk Analytics the most as the faculty made it seem intuitive and provided for hands on approach.

Which faculty has inspired you the most and why?

Mr. Shailesh a guest faculty and Director of Analytics at a consulting firm has been most inspirational with his positive demeanor and exceptional skills. He was a complete hands on person and I enjoyed interacting with him.