In this episode we discuss with Alex how executives should think about the decision of buying of-the shelf software solution vs. building the solution in-house, by yourself or with a partner. The conversation includes an overview of the pros and cons of each from both financial and technical perspective. We leave the audience with some actionable advice on how to go through the decision calculus on the question that increasingly faces today’s CXO’s who are looking to take their firms through the digital transformation.

Data science has made immense progress, but companies are still stuck with the question: how do you use data science to deliver real value to the business? They hire dozens of data scientists and invest in state-of-the-art technology, but only a few have delivered ROI and business impact. In this episode, Wayne Eckerson and Alex Vayner discuss what organizations need to do for data science success.

Before a company hires data science talent, they should understand the role and types of data scientists. Failing to differentiate between research, applied, and citizen data scientist can result in appointing the wrong people on crucial projects. To continue our previous episode's discussion, we invited Alex Vayner for a second time to get an answer to the question: What is a data scientist?

Taking a look at the history of data and analytics, inflection from inward to outward focus in analytics, and the trend toward more customer-driven problem solving.