Finance and technology veterans gamify data science, Analyttica TreasureHunt

It is a data-driven world. Big data and Analytics are the catch words of any business, they help enhance decisions and help organisations make informed choices. Over the years apart from capturing data and the needed statistics, it has also become imperative to use this data in the right way. While there are several different tools and solutions that help explore and analyse data so they can be used efficiently; there isn't any single holistic way to examine and explore this data.

"In our over two decades of experience, we have seen that the solutions that were available in the area of financial services and analytics that were fairly fragmented," says Rajeev Baphna, the CEO. Adding to this, Muraleedhar Ramapani the CTO says, "When you talk about big data or you talk about analytics, the biggest challenge is that it's a fairly quantitative topic that itself discourages people from learning it.

The background

Analyticca was established by Rajeev Baphna, who has over 25 years of experience in the financial services sector. The management team includes includes Muraleedhar Ramapai (CTO) with over 20 years of experience in the financial and retail sector, and Satyamoy Chatterjee (Head of Client Solutions and Consulting) with over 15 years of experience in BFSI analytics. The team also includes Parsuram Panigrahi who brings over 15 years of extensive experience in building scalable technology products to Analyttica; Ashutosh Joshi who comes with over 10 years in experience in building business solutions through applied analytics across the globe and Shilpi Jain who combines her over 13 years into deep quantitative methods to create business impact. The products are managed by Anoop Gopikumar who has over 10 years in consulting and technology.

"In all our collective experiences and exposure of over two decades we realised that analytical training and development was a big challenge most people faced. Not only are the solutions fragmented, training takes time and a lot of effort, whether it is a fresher or an experienced individual," says Rajeev. To solve this problem, the team decided to work on an integrated solution, that not only made analytics simpler but also made learning easier through a game - Analyttica TreasureHunt.

However, the team didn't want to be another technical trainer, citing the example of flight simulation training, Rajeev says, "While they are on the job, pilots have to face factors like air density, turbulence, cloud precipitation and other such details. So the simulation training helps them understand real job situations and strengthens their reflexes. We developed Analyttica TreasureHunt with the same idea in mind."

The Treasure Hunt

Built along similar lines as the game of Treasure Hunt, in this training program, the real time data is loaded and the trainee gets to solve real time business challenges. "You are guided in a very intelligent manner to be able to navigate and understand whether you are doing things correctly. The unique factor is that we don't constrain the user. If the user wants to proceed in a certain way as people solve problems and riddles in different ways so we wanted to keep that. Our system allows them to trip and fail because only if you fail can you learn," adds Rajeev.

The data that is fed in the simulator can be customised according to the challenges of every business, so that it remains with the system. Everything that happens during the journey every single time is recorded so that the trainer can clearly see the progress. The team believes that their biggest challenge so far has been to take a dense or deep topics like analytics and converting it into a user friendly platform.

"When you are creating the simulation, though it looks easy. But it requires a lot of structured thought, while for an experienced analyst it becomes more like a habit but if you ask them to give the steps then it takes them time. We realised we needed to sit with them for sometime as it was a new concept n it also needs to be easy to use," says Muraleedhar.

Elaborating further Rajeev says, "We are offering our expertise in terms of consulting and we are trying to embed that into the product. We want to create holistic solutions for analytics. We are looking at Models to integrate it in colleges and universities as well. As a fair balance we are looking at a decent balance between consultancy and training, solutions company."

Website: Analyttica