On Friday evening, Burberry announced that its very first group of employees that took part in the pioneering data upskilling programme had graduated. This programme was for a period of two years and was in collaboration with a London based tech company known as Decoded.
The programme was an in house one and the employees learned several new skills in a time span of 18 months. The programme in which they were enrolled was called Data Academy and they systematically learnt cutting edge data science techniques which included machine learning, data visualisation and coding in the Python programming language. This was done alongside their daily jobs.
All employees who have graduated will now have recognised qualifications which can be used elsewhere as well said Burberry.
“I’m very proud of our employees who have successfully graduated from our first Data Academy, “It’s important that we continue to offer people the opportunity to grow in their roles and develop new skills, Burberry chief information officer Mark McClennon said in a release.
In todays time all these skills have become of utmost importance and is crucial for the successful running of any business. Data collection helps to run an enterprise in a more systematic manner where it becomes easy to predict the retail patterns and consumer trends. Burberry believes that upskilling of employees is essential and with the pandemic still rising it becomes all the more important.
Decoded CEO Kathryn Parson said: “Burberry’s investment in the lifelong learning of its people is truly pioneering. Data skills have never been more critical to the future of retail. Machine learning and advanced analytics have the potential to make the way we do business exponentially faster, stronger and better.
Decoded CEO also added that upskilling of employees sends a strong message everywhere and motivates others to look in for similar prospects, they feel proud to be associated with this iconic British brand.
Burberry says that this was a huge success and they will be looking to launch a second set of employees in the second Data Academy in the year 2021. They would also like to expand this programme across different arenas and departments.