ANTHONY THUNSTRÖM: Data analytics could revitalise public services and accelerate economic development

Reform of SA’s electricity system to allow for embedded generation by private entities and the wheeling of electricity from independent power producers to private customers, along with accelerated investment in renewable generation technologies, gives hope for an end to load-shedding.

This would remove one of the biggest structural constraints on economic growth, leading to further investment and higher employment, but decentralisation of power generation also brings significant challenges that only a modernised, smart electricity grid using data analytics can hope to manage successfully.

Data analysis can help analyse customer behaviour and forecast electricity demand more accurately, optimise generation to account for intermittent renewables and fluctuating demand, perform predictive maintenance and fault detection, anticipate risks and respond faster to changes.

The power of big data is well understood by businesses worldwide, but it is little discussed in the local public sector.

As President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government tries to make the most of very limited resources, it also has to avoid a spiral of declining quality and availability of public services, crumbling infrastructure and social instability that could hold back our country’s development.

Plugging the gaps in everything from education, healthcare and policing, to water and sanitation infrastructure, energy supply and public transport shouldn’t be only about large new funding commitments. In this era of big data, we could also be working smarter to derive the biggest benefit from every rand we spend.

Enormous quantities of data is generated every second through mobile phones, social media, satellite imagery and electronic transactions which, if analysed for patterns and trends with the help of artificial intelligence, could help us to direct our resources to where they are needed most, far faster than has ever been possible before.

The UN, for one, has spotted the opportunity, noting that in 2020, 64.2 zettabytes of data were created, a 314% increase from 2015. This “deluge of data”, coupled with new technologies and analytical approaches, “can enable more agile, efficient and evidence-based decision-making and can better measure progress on the Sustainable Development Goals in a way that is both inclusive and fair”.

Spending patterns on mobile phone services could provide proxy indicators of income levels, crowdsourcing or tracking of food prices online could help monitor food security in near real-time, and mapping the movement of mobile phone users could help predict the spread of infectious diseases, the UN says.

Crime patterns, traffic flows and public transport utilisation could all be gleaned from big data and acted upon, drastically improving the allocation of resources while reducing waste and redundancies. Sentiment analysis of social media could pinpoint areas of failing service delivery and enhance performance.

Done responsibly and with the right privacy protections in place, the savings and efficiencies could significantly reduce the quantum of investment needed to bring critical public services up to scratch, increase the performance of our economy and improve the lives of citizens.

Data is also key to modern business, and even more so for a leading omnichannel retailer like TFG. Our vision, to create the most remarkable omnichannel experiences for our customers, is enabled by mining data for the sharpest, most relevant insights, and the ability to assimilate and interpret a multitude of data points in a complex, ever-changing environment.

Data has been described as the new gold. With real-time analytics, companies can rapidly gauge their customers’ product preferences, responses to marketing campaigns, and agreeable price points, without time-consuming market research. They can optimise supply chains, reduce waste and streamline operations, all contributing to enhanced performance.

But data is only useful if you have the technology and the talent to analyse and extrapolate useful insights and knowledge. Many companies struggle to design the right systems to integrate multiple data streams into a coherent whole that delivers the right insights, at the right time, for the right purpose.

Finding and retaining the people to do this is essential. A recent World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report listed data analysts and scientists, artificial intelligence and machine learning and big data specialists, as the top three roles in demand, while data occupations are listed as scarce and critical skills on SA’s National Critical Skills List.

Because we recognise the importance of data analytics to our country’s future, and that of our own business, TFG has established an annual fellowship to fund outstanding young SA students in the field of data science. We want to accelerate the development of one our country’s most scarce and critical skills, and in the process contribute to solving some of the most pressing social and business challenges of our time.

The Data Science & Leadership Fellowship, supported by TFG, will fund the first and second year of study towards either a research or coursework MSc in data science across five leading SA universities. Successful candidates will be selected on the basis of academic excellence and high levels of innovation, creativity and leadership.

By growing a corps of data specialists with the skills, passion and imagination to find meaning where others see only numbers, and the training and technology to apply these insights to real-world challenges, we could accelerate our country’s economic development for the benefit of all.

• Thunström is CEO of retail group TFG.