Multidimensional People Will Win The Marketplace: Harish Subramanian, VP, Great Learning

“We're wilfully sharing data, and trading-off data sharing for convenience,” said Harish Subramanian, VP, Great Learning, at SkillUp 2021.

As per a Gartner report, neuromorphic computing will replace traditional computing technologies by 2025. The explosion of data and the challenge of storing them will make at least 30% of the digital businesses look for DNA storage by 2024. Privacy will soon be in the red zone as 75% of the conversations at work will be recorded and analysed by 2025, the report added.

“The fact that we have single sign-on, the fact that we use a single platform to sign on, into everything means we are willfully sharing data with a lot of people. And that allows the companies to microcrack and get closer and closer, and tighter and tighter with their targeting until you become a target group of one or more companies,” said Subramanian.

He talked about a few trends in the industry including process automation; increasing freelance opportunities through collectives of designers, data scientists, UI designers; the rise of synthetic content; and the ways to differentiate misinformation from reality. The post-pandemic world is witnessing a distributed work culture, rather than a centralised one, thereby raising the cybersecurity concern for the companies. Further data-led management will hold the key for companies to track their performance metrics, he said.

Meta-skills

Earlier, people used to be known by the posts they held, like a software engineer, data scientist, or manager, but now we are seeing a shift towards the skill sets. 

“You know what, my skill is really what I want to be known for,” he said. Apart from the core skills, companies are now focusing on a few meta-skills, he added. 

“Meta-skills are more about habits, ways of working and ways of living, that you have to adopt, that companies are starting to value and test for more and more,” said Harish Subramanian.

Information discovery and continuous learning are two most relevant skills the industry looks out for today. The needs of the industry keep changing. It is important to know how to connect the dots to come up with relevant solutions. The ability to quickly discover and synthesise information is key, he added.

“Developing the ability to manage a variety of different people under different circumstances is a plus. Earlier, it was more of a hierarchical structure, now it's starting to become more fluid now,”says Subramanian.

Wrapping up

Harish Subramanian also talked about the huge demand supply gap of talent in the data science and analytics space. 

“Multidimensional people are the ones who will win the marketplace,” Subramanian said. In sum, the data science aspirants and working professionals should upskill to keep up with the demands of the field. 

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