Dell to double data scientist headcount

Dell Technologies is looking to double the headcount of data scientists at its Performance Analytics Group (PAG), headquartered out of Bengaluru, over the next 12 months.

The company is planning to hire doctorates in math and statistics with 3-4 years of experience at the entry level and 7-10 years of experience at the senior level. PAG was established in 2006 as Dell Global Analytics to serve as a shared support services entity for Dell within Dell and has grown to become a global organisation with 900 Business Intelligence analysts/ data scientists working from various geographies. Five hundred of the 900 BI analysts and data scientists work out of Bengaluru and the rest are in Bratislava (Slovakia), Casablanca (Morocco) and at the Dell headquarters in Austin (Texas).

“What started off as a best cost, offshoring solution a decade ago in Bengaluru has grown to become the hub for global analytics for Dell today. We are committed to the local market, which is home to a competitive talent pool of men and women. Our goal is to double the number of data scientists in Bengaluru in the next 12 months,” Doug Hillary, Senior Vice-President, Global Business Operations at Dell Technologies, told BusinessLine .

Asked about hiring numbers, he said “We don’t have hundreds of data scientists here, so we want to double the capacity.”

Hillary leads Dell’s PAG and is responsible for the strategy, planning and delivery of BI, reporting, analytics, and data management in support of Dell’s global sales, operations, and service organisations.

The company has created a Decision Sciences Academy last year, offering basic (4-8 weeks), intermediate (8-12 weeks) and advanced (6-12 months) online and instructor-led training programmes.

“The Academy educates folks on the way we approaches data science and analytics with Dell specific case studies, with the tools and techniques we prefer to use, accelerating their transition process and accelerating our ability to develop more data scientists at the highest level; 150 have already gone through the basic and intermediate programme” he said.

Highlighting the importance of the Bengaluru Analytics Group, he said the team built a sales business management system, a platform that is used by Dell’s global sales makers, including Michael Dell. “The Bengaluru team was asked to come up with a model that would make the pipeline forecast more accurate, as pipeline is the lifeline for any sales organisation. The result is, we now have a better, more accurate forecast model that allows us to see if we are on track to achieve our quarterly numbers or not, allows us to focus on new sales opportunities and redeploy our sales talent and manage our business better.”

Zeena Fruitwala, Vice-President, Dell Global Analytics, PAG, Bengaluru said, the Social Media Listening Centre for Dell’s Services organisation that leverages technology and analytics to engage with customers from Dell’s enterprise and consumer businesses, is another example of analytics at play. Consumer sentiment can be detected at an individual or aggregate level and concerns/issues can quickly be routed to the relevant care or support organisations to be resolved. Similarly, feedback from customers can be evaluated and incorporated as new features in new product releases.

Asked about the next big innovation out of PAG Bengaluru, Hillary said: “Over the last decade we have built a solid foundation with our Analytics Group to better manage the vast amounts of information we have collected. Going forward, the focus will be on accelerating the use of predictive analytics, machine learning and AI in order to lead global processes to every function over the next 12-18 months.”

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