Having worked in the United States in the field of big data and analytics for more than a decade, Gaurav Vohra and Sarita Digumarti believed in the power of big data and analytics. They felt that all companies, no matter what size, rely on data and analytics to make critical business decisions.
From understanding consumer behaviour to predicting market trends, even right down to product features, many moves are driven by analytics and data in companies across the world. Looking at the huge opportunity being presented by big data analytics, they thought that it was the need of the hour to skill professionals in this field. In 2010, back from the US, they decided to start their venture Jigsaw Academy in Bengaluru that specialises in imparting online training to professionals in the field of big data and analytics.
“The analytics and big data sector has seen consistent growth in the last five years despite an increasingly uncertain global outlook. The advanced analytics market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 33.2 per cent and big data at a CAGR of 26.4 per cent, almost six to eight times that of the overall IT markets. We wanted to bridge the gap between the demand and supply for qualified, industry ready professionals by training individuals as well as corporate participants in widely used technologies and tools in big data processing and analysis. The volume of data generated is growing exponentially and data processing requirements are getting more and more complex and a data scientist profile requires a mix of skills that are hard to find in the current scenario. They need programming skills plus statistics plus business backgrounds,” Vohra who is the co-founder and the CEO of the company told THE WEEK.
Both the co founders have observed that the demand for skilled data professionals is coming from almost every field. “For instance, an e-commerce company tries to gauge the interest and behaviour of its customers and accounts that are in the form of information and data. This data can be used to create a more personalised experience for a customer whenever he or she visits their website. Similarly there is a lot of structured and unstructured data in a cement company. This data can be used by the cement company to take strategic business decisions. Data analysts can come very handy for different set ups,” added Vohra.
The academy runs different courses in the field which involve analytics for beginners, big data for beginners, analytics for leaders, domain and advanced courses such as financial analytics, retail analytics, HR analytics, advanced certification in retail analytics and advanced certification in financial analytics. Besides this, the academy has analytics workshops which involve corporate training and college workshops. The course fee varies from Rs 30,000 to Rs 50,000 for each course and the average course is for six months. Ever since its inception the Jigsaw Academy has trained over 40,000 students across 30 plus countries. The company which started with a handful of employees has today a strength of around 155 people and has been funded by the Manipal Global Education Services.
