How Dialog Axiata's reskilling program opened new data analyst career

When in late 2011 Dialog Axiata acquired the fixed operator Suntel, Marlin Thayanathan, who was working for Suntel at the time, chose to stay with the newly merged company. Over the following eight years she drew on her background in accounting and finance to evolve within Business Control function for Dialog Axiata’s Enterprise Business Unit.

Then in 2019, after 12 years of work experience, Thayanathan’s career changed track dramatically when Dialog Axiata launched its “Analytics at the Edge” transformation program.

“That's when the entire company shifted towards a more analytic space…among each division and business unit. [Dialog Axiata] wants to have [people] who are able to handle data analysis, and who are able to do an analytical role…for the department,” explains Thayanathan.

Dialog Axiata looked in-house and launched the Analytics at the Edge program to train employees across all its divisions– including those without a technology background -- to analyze, visualize and act rapidly on data, guided by new data governance procedures and a big data analytics/AI maturity index.

Thayanathan was nominated by her line manager to be one of the hundreds of people in the company who would acquire new programming skills and help it reap business benefits from its wealth of customer and market data. This meant leaving behind the annual creation of reports in Excel and embracing a daily rhythm of delivering analytical insights, including cross-sell and upsell models.

“I moved away from a traditional accounting/finance role and am now in a revenue optimization unit where analytics is very critical,” explains Thayanathan.

The change was possible because Dialog Axiata provided Thayanathan with several months of training during which she learnt how to use Advanced SQL, Python and Tableau data visualization software, as well as basic and advanced data analysis techniques; statistical learning and basic principles of machine-based models. As a result, she can now take “deep dives into data analysis”, she explains.

Fast progress

The transition wasn’t always easy, however.

“It was a steep learning curve for me, especially coming from an accounting and finance background where I used Excel and didn't have that much IT knowledge.”

However, the effort has delivered many payoffs, she explains, including a greater sense of independence and the ability to quickly find answers to business questions. “Now…we are running our own queries and…if you want to create a solution to a particular business problem…through maybe a dashboard, or an alert or a model, now we are involved in that process,” using software building blocks.

Thayanathan has enjoyed being able to nurture her analytical side. “I always had an interest in analytics, so this helped me to grow. It's a really great experience because I'm able to also practice what I've learned, especially since enterprise is a very complex area.”

She also liked being involved with creating new systems for analyzing enterprise data that the business lacked, she explains. Although Dialog Axiata had “a really good digitized retail analytics base…when it came to the enterprise sector, we had to build everything as most of the analytics was done manually using spreadsheets and presented using PowerPoints.”

Dialog Axiata’s move to democratize the use of data analytics across its business has also changed how Thayanathan works with other units and colleagues as the company creates a less siloed approach to collaboration and data exchange.

“I'm working with a wider group of people now than before. Our analytics team is made up of different people from different departments and they can be in different parts of the analytical journey. So, for example, I can be a data translator, another person can be a data scientist, and another person can be a subject matter expert.”

New measures of performance

It also allows her to take more of a customer focus.

“The audiences for our analytic output are, say, sales teams or product teams...and we've enabled them to get an automated digitized version of what they would require [for customers]. So, definitely, we have a sense of making a contribution.”

At the same time there has been a shift in how her performance is measured.

“We used to have more traditional sorts of KPIs, but now it's more project-driven and most of my KPIs are tied up to the delivery of the analytical projects. The project delivery also follows the agile methodology and hence projects can be prioritized and deprioritized according to the significance and urgency of the business use cases”

“The KPI are tied to the quality and the usefulness of the project and its acceptance by the end user.”

Thayanathan admits that the transition may be challenging for some. “Some found it very challenging.” But for her “the program was rewarding and good, because it provided a lot of upskilling. I'd been doing the same thing over and over again, so it was a change, and I was also able to learn something new. So, it was a good transition for me and gave me a different career progression.”