Ist der Data Scientist der künftige Controller?

  • Irene Wurm

Student thesis: Bachelor's Thesis

Abstract

The effects of digitalization present companies with considerable challenges. The opportunities presented by big data, real-time analyses and artificial intelligence are particularly noticeable in controlling. These digital technologies are fundamentally changing the tasks and skills required of employees in the area of controlling. The shift from traditional “bean counters” to business partners has been noticeable for some time now. Controllers now act as key players in management decision-making by providing well-founded analyses and forecasts. In order to meet these new requirements, employees must continuously develop and adapt their technical, analytical and communication skills. The observation period March 2024 was selected for the empirical part. All job advertisements with the keywords data science, data scientist and data analyst were downloaded from the online job portals karriere.at, stepstone.at and willhaben.at. These were evaluated and analyzed using a database. The job advertisements were examined for professional and personal requirements. In particular, education, professional experience, English language skills, IT skills, personal characteristics and tasks were entered into the database. An analysis of the results with the previous year's data for the occupational field of data science provides insights into the development and change of data scientists. The comparison of the evaluations of data scientists from 2024 with the data of controllers from 2023 illustrates both similarities and differences between the occupational fields. This makes it clear that despite some overlaps, both occupational groups continue to have independent and specialized roles in the company. The comprehensive presentation of the field of data science explains the respective roles in this occupational field. The analysis of the job advertisements, divided into data analyst, data scientist and data engineer, shows the exact differences between these job titles. The theory that the data scientist will replace the controller is rather unlikely, as the areas of responsibility and specializations differ significantly. Instead of replacing the controller with the data scientist, companies should promote cooperation between the two professional fields. By combining their respective strengths, data scientists and controllers can jointly contribute to improving strategic decision-making in the company and thus create significant added value.
Date of Award2024
Original languageGerman (Austria)
SupervisorAlbert Mayr (Supervisor)

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