Building a data-led organisation – Andy Key, Asda
Andy Key, a Privacy Transformation Manager at Asda, has recently completed the Data Analytics Level 4programme with Corndel. Andy initially joined the programme to enhance his current skill set but didn’t expect the opportunities the programme afforded him.Without any prior coding experience, Andy has been able to innovate, create time-saving projects, and give countless hours of time back to his team.
Andy has been part of the Asda team for just six years and was excited at the prospect of enhancing his current knowledge in data analytics and the intriguing “topics and skills to learn along the way”.
Asda’s approach to creating a data-led culture is centred on investing in the learning and development of their employees and giving all Asda colleagues the chance to advance. They have a long-established culture of investing in development, and with a data focus, this hasn’t changed. They continue to offer colleagues a range of learning opportunities to facilitate both individual and company growth.
Personal Highlights
When Andy started the course, he didn’t anticipate how much further his knowledge could grow. Starting out with no experience of coding, after completing the programme, he now has these skills added to his toolkit. Learning Python and advanced SQL has massively helped his day-to-day role.
“By the end of the programme, I could build clustering algorithms in Python and predictive analytics in terms of time series. When it came to my synoptic project, I actually found that was the most enjoyable assignment that I’ve ever done. It was a chance to bring all of the data analytics, coding and predictive analytics learnings into one project. If you had said I would be able to do this at the beginning of the programme. I would have laughed but, by the end of the programme, it was something I really enjoyed, looked forward to and probably one of my best pieces of work.”
Personal Coach
His coach dedicated additional one-to-one sessions to enhance his development and ensure he had the support needed to build on the skills from the programme.
“I appreciate the talent coaches and tutors so much. They were absolutely amazing and really took the time to understand my needs. If I needed more one-to-ones, they were always there to do that. Even going above and beyond to cover additional topics which was helpful.”
Advice to other learners
Andy is keen to encourage others to “get involved” whether they are new to the Data Analytics field or already have experience. The tailored coaching will give you what you need to get you to the next level of data in your role.
Business Impact
Delivering business impact is a key component of the Corndel Data Analytics programme. Since starting the programme, Andy has been actively using his growing skillset to positively influence the business, ranging from improving his day-to-day efficiency to innovating new ways to give time back to him and his team.
Despite having minimal coding experience prior to the programme, Andy created a Python code with the package Selenium to update a web platform that previously took between five and ten hours of manual input each time, saving the business countless hours in the process to focus on higher-value responsibilities. “This was really fun to do and obviously very helpful to the business”.
Andy is now helping form a more data literate culture by sharing his experience with his peers:
“I’ve been able to take what I’ve learned on the programme and help influence and teach other people in my team, how to better store data, how to better structure our data, and ultimately, how to enrich it.”