Boom Seen in Analytics Outsourcing

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Amid all the hullabaloo about the rise of data scientists, companies still struggle to find candidates with the skills they seek and to pay them what they can command.

So it’s not surprising that the analytics outsourcing market is on the upswing. While the analytic services market is estimated to reach $46.9 billion this year, IDC projects it will reach $70.8 billion by 2016. Meanwhile, in-house spending on analytics – which includes technology purchases — is expected to grow by 7 to 10 percent, Information Management reports.

Analytics outsourcing includes business and IT consulting, systems integration services, business process outsourcing, application management, and other IT and data services, according to IDC.

The dearth of data modelers, business analysts and data scientists are among the reasons cited for the growing services market, as well as the speed of innovation around analytic tools, especially those that automate data processes.

But as with health care organizations that are scrambling to meet federal mandates and flocking to consulting firms because they don’t have necessary talent in-house, signing on with an analytics service provider requires due diligence. As George McCulloch, deputy CIO of Vanderbilt University Medical Center told me, outside service providers have to hire from the same shallow talent pool as their client companies – and might have the same talent struggles.