Today’s businesses exist among a sea of wishy-washy strategies and dozens of experts with differing opinions. When making important decisions, many are recognising the value of turning to the data.
Luckily, these days the amount, variety, and richness of data at their fingertips is at an all time high—but they need people who can make sense of it all.
Big data’s kind of a big deal
There’s a reason it’s being called an “explosion of data”: in 2023, it was estimated that 90% of the world’s data was generated over the previous 2 years, with 328.77 million terabytes still being created each day. Every click, swipe, and transaction leaves its digital mark and gives valuable insights into customer behavior, market trends, and operational efficiency.
Smart businesses are harnessing the power of data to identify patterns, gain deeper insights, and make better decisions. Various industries show an ever-growing hunger for professionals who can readily extract actionable insights. That’s where SQL comes into play.
SQL’s data’s friend, and can be yours too
SQL (less commonly-known as Structured Query Language) enables both technical and non-technical people to interact with data seamlessly. SQL is simple, intuitive, and incredibly versatile. It allows handling massive datasets with minimal steps and effort. Its plain English syntax, for one, helps make querying databases, getting insights, and analysing data a breeze.
SQL is to data what the English language is to global communication—and benefits of being fluent in it show up across various industries. For example:
Finance professionals can use SQL to analyse financial data, perform calculations, and generate reports for budgeting, forecasting, and financial analysis purposes. Suppose they want to assess the overall financial health of the business. They can use SQL to analyse the company's cash flow over the past month, identify trends, and see peak periods of income and expenses.
Data analysts often use SQL to extract valuable insights from large datasets, perform complex analyses, and derive actionable intelligence to support decision-making and drive business growth.
A marketer can use SQL to get insights from customer data and inform marketing their strategies and campaigns. Let's say a marketer wants to identify the most profitable customer segments for a new product launch. They can use SQL to query the company's database and analyse purchase history data to see which customer behaviours correlate with higher sales.
Have data—and your career—in the palm of your hands
Whether you're a seasoned expert or a newcomer to the world of data, learning or improving your SQL skills is the key to taking a step up in your role or driving innovation in your organisation.
Wherever there’s data, SQL follows. Having stood the test of the ever-developing, bumpy technology world, SQL stands to remain valuable across all industries for the long haul.
Get in touch with us at 5miles to ask about our new SQL courses and see which one suits you.
