Data will surge through business like the earlier tsunamis of personal computers, the internet and smartphones, predicts Alwin Magimay.
The partner and head of digital and analytics at KPMG says: “We are entering the fourth wave of digital value creation. I think data scientists are going to be to the present time what computer programmers were in the 1990s.”
If Magimay is right, then a generation of school-leavers and university graduates must think very hard about how they learn the skills for an era when digital platforms and data are at the heart of every economic and administrative activity. Many will ask just how relevant is the MBA, long seen as a passport to leadership, in an era of teenage coders and start-ups?