Data science and machine learning are having profound impacts on business, and are rapidly becoming critical for differentiation and sometimes survival. Being able to quickly categorize the potential impacts into one of five categories, and communicate their potential, will help data and analytics leaders drive better results. With their ability to frame complex business problems as machine learning or operations research problems, data scientists hold the key to unveiling better solutions to old problems. They may even reveal new problems and approaches that were previously unknown. One example, popularized by the film and book Moneyball, showed how old ways of evaluating performance in baseball were outperformed by the application of data science.

Data science and machine learning are having profound impacts on business, and are rapidly becoming critical for differentiation and sometimes survival. Being able to quickly categorize the potential impacts into one of five categories, and communicate their potential, will help data and analytics leaders drive better results. Gartner research director Erick Brethenoux explains the five categories of impact and provides real-world examples taken from the worlds of government, sport and business. With their ability to frame complex business problems as machine learning or operations research problems, data scientists hold the key to unveiling better solutions to old problems. They may even reveal new problems and approaches that were previously unknown.