In September 2019, I joined Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness as a Co-op from Drexel University on the Analytics & Data Science team. During my time, I was exposed to multiple technologies such as web analytics, predictive modeling, and data visualization tools. As I began to gain exposure to these technologies, I focused on building dashboards using multiple data visualization tools for businesses in eye care and clinical trials in addition to our own internal operations. I was able to tap the team and resources around me to excel, hence allowing me to succeed and become more valuable as a team member myself. This experience for me was the first of many but I was able to take advantage all of the opportunities provided to me and grow my knowledge in the field of Analytics and Data Science.
In my first two weeks at SSW, I had attended two events that really gave me an understanding of Data Analytics and Publicis Health as a whole. The first was the Data and Analytics Committee Summit held by the ARIS group, which was a new and innovative group connecting members of the Data community at Publicis Health. At this event, I was exposed to multiple ongoing initiatives created by multiple members allowing me to better understand the approach in achieving quality work. The event had multiple speakers discussing their experience in the industry of health and data. Being fairly new to the industry as a college student, this event really motivated me to go out and fully take advantage of the knowledge I was getting here at SSW.
One of the presentations that stood out the most was the Solutions Guide presentation. This presentation was introduced the Publicis Health Solutions Guide, which showcased capabilities across agencies in Publicis Health. The idea behind the Solutions Guide was to encourage the message of “Power of One”, and this really hit it home by allowing agencies to interact together between multiple projects.
The next event I had attended during my first two weeks at SSW was the Early Careers Conference. This conference was designed for employees who were in their first two years at a Publicis Health agency to interact with other employees and get to know Publicis better as a whole. During this event, there had been three events planned in order to give a better understanding of the capabilities and initiatives taken by agencies. One of the events was called Data 101, and it was being held by SSW Analytics team. Through multiple workshops such as search analytics, social listening, and web analytics we were able to explain the power of data in today’s world. As only a co-op, I was given the opportunity to get to lead the Search Analytics workshop, this experience really allowed to me further my knowledge in understanding data’s purpose everywhere.
Moreover, my first two weeks at SSW started off great but from there it was only getting better. With the introduction to multiple clients and team members, I was able to gain fuller exposure to the business and develop a deeper understanding of our client’s goals, and what they were looking to achieve. One of the first projects I was assigned was focused on developing key performance indicator scorecards which allowed me to understand the role Saatchi Wellness and other partner teams played in achieving brand awareness, engagement and product consideration. For many companies, data is a critical asset in decision making- and this was one of the many takeaways I concluded while actively building the performance scorecards that helped fuel those decisions.
As I stepped into more work, I started becoming more familiar with tools used regularly within the marketing analytics world, such as Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Google Data Studio, Tableau and DOMO. These tools enable analytics teams to provide reporting and optimization for clients in a robust, visually appealing manner. Stepping into this role, I was not familiar with any of these technologies but with the support and training from multiple team members, I became efficient in them. These tools eventually lead me to learn more about business intelligence as a practice within analytics. While working on multiple client projects, I began to learn a common business intelligence (BI) process that enabled us to leverage these tools to fuel impactful data analysis & decision making. This process was broken out into multiple parts starting at data measurement, then data collection, next data preparation then onto data visualization and lastly a fully developed dashboard with impactful insights.
This BI process later became a process I learned could be replicated across many different use cases. Through the use of this process, I realized that high quality analytics essentially boils down to a process of story-writing. Starting with measurement planning, this can be described as the part of the story where characters are chosen in order to shape the story and steer the plot. When collecting data, this can be similar to creating the plot, as we collect data, we slowly develop the story behind. After collecting data, we start to prepare it, and this is similar to just shaping the plot and cleaning it up. Once data is prepared, we then turn to data visualization, which brings all of the parts of the story together such as the plot. Lastly, we have a fully developed dashboard with insights, this becomes the fully complete story that is for publication.
My diversified experience in Data Science and Analytics allowed me to come to a conclusion that data is a crucial part to any company but it is only as crucial as understood, meaning that data can only be valuable if it truly tells a story and has insight behind it. From working on various clients and projects, my knowledge and interest allowed me to become more versatile and adaptable to different concepts within the industry. I was able to use my experience and knowledge in ways that got me involved in data strategy, multiple new business pitches and even predictive modeling using social data. When I reflect back on time on the Analytics team, I think about how I was able to take advantage every opportunity in front of me and really strive to learn the most I could.
Ultimately, this co-op experience has been amazing and I couldn’t have asked for a better team to work with and learn from. The impact I was able to make with clients was becoming visible to me and that’s what made me love this job even more. All in all, I can say that data is a very powerful tool and a co-op like this allowed me to open my eyes wider and become passionate about it even more.
Written by Jeet Vaghela
I am currently a sophomore at Drexel University, majoring in Management Information & Finance with a minor in Business Consulting. Through Drexel’s co-op system, I was able to land my first of three co-op roles here at Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness on the Analytics & Data Science team. As I explore through many career options, my experience at SSW has been amazing and I hope to build on the skills I have learned here and excel in my career.
Good learning experience and an insightful detailed report.