All model from data must be people-centered, says Prudencio Pedrosa, manager of McKinsey Data Analytics , during a session at the University of Navarra. The use of technological tools has to go hand in hand with knowing how to interpret the data to adapt them to the needs of the business, argues Pedrosa. The Big Data expert explains to the students of the School of Economics the importance of Big Data, what it is used for and what skills are required to get the best out of it.

Today, Pedrosa argues, there are companies such as LinkedIn, Uber, Amazon or Netflix that focus their business on data. Advanced analytics is not just for start-ups, he says, but is necessary for good decision making. Companies can make good decisions if they have good data, he reiterates.

Increasingly, a profile is required of people trained in business but who have the ability to interpret the data, says the expert. Pedrosa advises students to know the instructions of Statistics and to handle some programming language, either to fill positions of Data Strategy or Translators, people who translate the data into decisions for the business.