Abstract
Businesses use data to enhance operational performance, creating demand for professionally trained data/business analytics graduates. Universities offer a variety of academic programs in response to the increasing labor market demands. Yet, research on how well educational offerings adapt to market demand is scant. This paper aims to evaluate how well university curricula match Saudi Arabia’s marketplace needs. A content analysis was conducted to compare universities’ analytics programs with a sample of internet job postings over a 12-month period. The results were evaluated quantitatively to assess the alignment between academia and industry. This information is of value to industry, universities, and learners.
Introduction
Emerging information and communication technologies now produce more data than the business world has previously witnessed. Organizations perceive data as an asset that provides opportunities for competitive advantages and value gains. Therefore, organizations invest heavily in technologies to incorporate relevant data into their key processes (Mikalef et al., Citation2021). Several analytical methods are applied to the data to transform it into information that enables insightful organizational decisions. This has given rise to the constantly evolving fields of Big Data Analytics (BDA), Business Analytics (BA), and Data Science (DS). Thus, the need has emerged for well-trained professionals who can help organizations to achieve their data-driven management (Al-Sakran, Citation2014; Verma et al., Citation2019).
Organizations in the current business environment strive to uncover the potential benefits hidden in this large volume of data. However, a significant challenge organizations face is the shortage of data/business employees who can competently evaluate it. The market demands more specialized employees with specific competencies that allow them to aggregate, analyze, and manage large data sets. The literature shows that one of the factors leading to the failure of analytics projects is the shortage of talented employees who possess the necessary skills (Debortoli et al., Citation2014; Sanders, Citation2014).
Universities play a critical role in supporting sustainable development by supplying the market with well-prepared graduates. Thus, in response to the growing demand created by the job market, universities offer many data and business analytics programs. To fit market needs, universities use various labels to describe these programs, such as data analytics, business data analytics, business intelligence, and big data analysis (Verma et al., Citation2019). As the advances in information technologies constantly evolve, job market requirements are in a state of flux accordingly. Thus, organizations attempt to adapt to these changes by announcing new data positions regularly (Halwani et al., Citation2022).
Yet, research on how rapidly educational offerings respond to market demand is scant. Assessing educational programs against market needs is valuable in bridging the gap between academia and industry. Academia works with the business world to clarify the knowledge domains and skill set required to master analytical activities across organizations. This is particularly important for the Saudi Arabian market since the Kingdom aims to educate and create a pool of 20,000 AI and data scientists to revolutionize its workforce and place it among the top 15 countries globally (Jain, Citation2018). Therefore, the primary goal of this paper is to examine the existing higher education programs in data and business analytics, analyze industry job requirements in this field to uncover the skill set and competencies valued by organizations and evaluate how well graduates are meeting these requirements.
Therefore, the key question driving this investigation is:
To what extent are data and business analytics programs compatible with the Saudi job market demands?
What types of knowledge and skills are delivered by Saudi universities in data/business analytics programs?
What are the primary requirements in the Saudi market for employment in data/business analytics jobs?
The following section outlines the related work in the research field. The third section describes the research method applied to collect the data and presents the key results of this study. The paper concludes with a discussion of the results, limitations, implications, and direction for future research.
Related work
The multidisciplinary field of data and business analytics contributes to significant variations in data-related professions, job requirements, and instructional degrees and qualifications. The overlapping descriptions create confusion in the workplace, reflected in universities’ offerings of data and business analytics programs that widen the gap between academia and industry. Furthermore, the lack of standardized conceptualization in data and business analytics fuels discrepancies between the two worlds (Halwani, 2022). While the definitions of data science, business analytics, and data analytics are closely related, the contexts of their applications shape their differences.
A review of the current data and business analytics academic programs shows they do not share a standard curriculum. Nevertheless, a common goal among the programs is to equip learners with the necessary skills for transforming data into information that can be used for insightful decision-making. The programs are offered as a specialized analytic program or a combined degree with an existing information systems (IS) program at an undergraduate or master level. Most of the subject areas offered in these programs cover skills relevant to the three areas of business, statistics, and computing.
Different approaches were used in analyzing universities’ offerings to identify the skill set required for teaching data/business analytics programs. Harris et al. (Citation2013) surveyed data scientists and identified five skill categories for data-related jobs: machine learning/big data, math/operation research, programming, statistics, and business. Further, the results of interviews conducted by Dubey and Gunasekaran (Citation2015) outlined three major skill categories; IT, communication, and analytic skills. Their work also classified the hard and soft skills needed by data professionals, such as statistics, financial accounting, forecasting, marketing, leadership, interpersonal skills, and team skills. However, the study by Alharthi et al. (Citation2017) points out that the primary skill needed in the field of big data is technical skill, followed by predictive analytics, decision-making models, and statistics competencies.
A different perspective was introduced by Kowalczyk and Buxmann (Citation2015) who believe that to produce useful analytic insights, analysts must combine their skills with the specific-domain knowledge of decision-makers. This view is supported by Vidgen et al. (Citation2017) who suggested that data/business analysts need to possess the capacity to collaborate across corporate silos. According to Kim and Lee (Citation2016), much of the existing research is oriented around job ads analysis, which generally describes the required skills and knowledge for data/business analysts.
The work of Todd et al. (Citation1995) classified the IS jobs requirements into three major knowledge bands, Technical, Business, and Systems, and seven categories of skills, including Hardware, Software, Business, Management, Social, Problem-solving, and Development methods. provides a summary of the primary knowledge and a description for each category.
Table 1. Classification of IS knowledge/skills.
Lee (Citation2005) modified their original framework by adding the category of Network Architecture to capture the emerging skills required following the evolution of the internet. shows Lee’s modified knowledge and skills specifications for data/business analytics.
Table 2. Data/business knowledge/skills.
This study adopts Todd et al.'s (Citation1995) and Lee’s (Citation2005) frameworks since they provide dual perspectives of the general knowledge and specific skills required for the data/business analytics field. It serves as a holistic indicator for each skill category, allowing a better capture of the current academic programs and employment requirements.
The existing literature shows the limitation of most previous studies that focus on analyzing the demands of data and the business job market as having a geographical restriction on the data sample. For instance, findings such as Halwani et al. (Citation2022); Johnson et al. (Citation2020); Phelps and Szabat (Citation2017); Stanton and Stanton (Citation2020); and Verma et al. (Citation2019) are contextualized within the United States. Examples of other contexts include the Netherlands (Daneva et al., Citation2017), Morocco (Makdoun et al., Citation2018), and Canada (Wang et al., Citation2018).
In the context of Saudi Arabia, a single study was published by Al-Sakran (Citation2014) in which the local job requirements for business analytics positions and academic programs were analyzed through a survey. As recommended by Al-Sakran (Citation2014), more efforts are needed by universities to revise their offerings by focusing specifically on the job market demands in the local economy of the Kingdom.
Within this context, this study attempts to investigate the current status of the data and business analytics field by analyzing academic programs and job ads, a more rigorous approach that reflects an industry assessment and uncovers the extent of alignment between the two worlds.
Methodology
To achieve this paper’s goal, content analysis was conducted of the academic programs offered online by universities in the field of data analysis and business analytics. The job market requirements were also analyzed based on the job-postings data collected from hiring websites. Details will be presented in the following sections.
Data/business analytics academic programs
To address the research’s first sub-question, data was collected from nine governmental universities, which were found to offer 11 data analysis/business analytics programs in Saudi Arabia. provides a summary of the programs. Only King Saud University, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, and King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (1) offer a Master of Business Analytics. The remaining universities, Saudi Electronic University, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (2), Princess Nourah Bint Abdul Rahman University, Jeddah University, Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Jouf University, and the Islamic University of Madinah, offer data analysis programs. The nine universities offer ten master-level programs and only one bachelor-level program in the following fields: business administration, computing and informatics, computing and mathematics, computer and information sciences, computer science and engineering, mathematics and statistics, information systems and operations management and computer science and information systems.
Table 3. List of universities offering data/business analytics programs.
There was a variation in the number of courses (both core and elective courses were counted from each program). Each program’s curriculum was studied, and the courses were classified into groups based on the content analysis. Course identification and classification followed Todd et al.'s (Citation1995) and Kim and Lee’s (Citation2016) frameworks. presents the total number of courses plotted across the knowledge area. The vast majority of the courses relate to Software skills, followed by Problem-solving skills. The second-highest number of courses belong to the Management and Business categories. A lower number of courses were found for Architecture/Network, Research, Capstone Project, and Development.
Figure 1. Variation in data/business analytics Course.
Courses for Social Skills were the least prevalent of all categories. Referring to the original framework, the Hardware category was removed as no courses were found to fit this skill.
Data/business analytics jobs on Saudi Arabia’s market
To address the research’s second sub-question, Saudi Arabian data/business analytics-related job requirements were collected for 2021–2022 from two popular employment websites, https://www.linkedin.com and https://www.bayt.com. Because recruiters frequently post the same advertisement concurrently on several platforms, no other job websites were selected. The search included a list of positions incorporating the Data Analysis and Business Analytics fields.
The initial results identified a total of 303 job postings. Next, the empirical data was filtered to include only full-time positions requiring a degree and located within the Kingdom. Duplicated, missing, and inaccurate entries were eliminated from the data set during the filtration process. The filtered data included 288 job postings conforming to the criteria. An Excel spreadsheet was created to prepare the data for further analysis, with the following details: job title, description, location, education level, responsibilities, experience, and required knowledge and skill set. The content of the job postings was categorized using Todd et al. (Citation1995) original schema and modified by Kim and Lee (Citation2016) to capture the skill set of the current data/business analytics job roles.
Results and analysis
A basic analysis of job advertisements was conducted to understand the data/business analytics-related job requirements in Saudi Arabia’s marketplace.
Prior experience
In most job advertisements, prior experience was a crucial prerequisite for applicants. Only 5% of the job ads did not indicate experience as a core requirement. Sixteen per cent mentioned experience without indicating a specific number of years. However, most job advertisements (78%) listed a particular number of years as the top prerequisite for applicants. Thirty-two per cent of the job ads were for positions requiring 1–3 years of experience, suggesting an excellent opportunity for fresh graduates. However, 24% of the ads specified a minimum of 3–5 years of experience, and 19% preferred more than five years of experience. Only 3% of the ads required applicants to have 2–5 years of experience. This corroborates with existing studies that show employers expect data and business analysts to possess a certain level of experience (Baumeister et al., Citation2020; Qin et al., Citation2022).
Location
The location of the job openings was examined to determine the Kingdom’s high-demand regions for the workforce in data analysis/business analytics. The capital city, Riyadh, in the Central Province, is the most demanding area for data/business professionals, with around 195 positions, followed by the city of Jeddah, with 33 job openings. The Eastern Province offered applicants 7 positions in Dammam and 6 in Al Khobar. Four jobs were in Tabuk and Al Jubail, respectively, and the least number of offers, one position, was identified in each of the following cities: Thuwal, Jizan, Dhahran, and Al-Ula. Four positions were found to be in the Western Province without specifying the names of the city, and 33 openings mentioned the general location of Saudi Arabia. Only two job ads offered remote positions ().
Figure 2. Location of data/business analytics jobs within the Kingdom by Percentage.
Educational level
The education level was another crucial consideration for data/business analytics positions. The total number of ads that requested a certain level of education was 236 ().
Table 4. Percentage of educational level requirements.
Employers seek highly educated applicants, as 80% of the postings preferred a bachelor’s or college degree or diploma, and 8% required a master’s or bachelor’s qualification. Few job ads (4%) preferred applicants with a master’s degree only. Other (5%) required high school, diploma, or certificate holders. Only 2% required applicants with a PhD or master’s degree. One percent of the ads provided a general educational requirement without mentioning a specific degree. Similar to previous findings (Parks et al., Citation2018), companies prefer highly educated and specialized individuals for data/business analytics positions.
Knowledge and skills
The Saudi market, like other established markets in the field, required a range of skills to be possessed by data/business analysts, supporting previous findings (Vidgen et al., Citation2017). The categories of Software, Social, and Business were exceptionally high, with around 70% of the job postings mentioning related skills. The remaining 30% of the ads were distributed among other categories: Problem-solving, Management, Development, and Architecture/Network, respectively. shows the distribution of market requirements among knowledge bands and skills categories.
Figure 3. The market’s knowledge and skill set requirements.
The Business knowledge band, including its sub-categories, was the most required class in the Saudi market, as around 53% of the job ads fall under this category, followed by the Technical (30%) and Systems (16%) knowledge bands.
Among all individual categories, the Software skill under the Technical knowledge band was the most prominent skill category required for the data/business analytics jobs in Saudi Arabia (25%). This result is unsurprising as technical skill has been considered a dominant requirement in recent data and business analytics positions (Alharthi et al., Citation2017).
The next highest skill was Social (24%), where the job ads specified the need for strong communication and interaction skills. Many employers emphasized that applicants should possess outstanding verbal and non-verbal communication abilities, excellent interpersonal skills, and self-organizational skills. This is consistent with earlier research showing that a data/business analyst needs to have excellent communication abilities. In fact, Social skill was the highest skill category within the Business knowledge band. This emphasizes the importance of soft skills training for data/business analysts.
Business skill came third in terms of the data and business analytics market’s needs, with 20% of job ads including this category. It appears that the marketplace requests candidates with high industry-specific domain knowledge. This aligns with previous findings denoting the importance of gaining general and proper domain knowledge (Vidgen et al., Citation2017). Problem-solving and Management skills were required less (9%) than in previous studies. The Development skill received a relatively low mention (7%), closely followed by the Architecture/Network skill (5%). This may indicate that this particular skill receives less focus in employability within Saudi’s data/business analytics market. Only 1% of the job announcements requested a general knowledge of Hardware. Perhaps the emergence of Cloud services reduced the need for qualified personnel with technical Hardware skills.
These results support existing evidence that data/business analysts must be knowledgeable in various subject areas and skilled in numerous domains. Data/business analysts work in a networked environment where they must rely on their analytical skills to investigate problems’ underlying causes, use their industry expertise to propose suitable solutions, and effectively communicate with team members and executives to meet the needs of the business.
Assessment of the alignment between academic programs and market requirements
depicts the extent of the universities’ programs’ conformation to the data/business analytics market requirements. Almost all the universities’ programs in this study had a technology-oriented design corresponding to the high market need for Technical skill. The analysis of the programs’ courses revealed that the Software category contained the highest number of courses of all the knowledge domains and skill set. The exception was the Executive Master’s program in Business Analytics (King Saud University), which offered only 17% of technical courses. The program’s focus most likely contributed to this lower percentage as it also aimed to equip learners with other analytical and managerial skills.
Figure 4. The extent of alignment between academic programs and market needs.
Surprisingly, 80% of the programs assessed in this study fell short of meeting the market requirements for specialized graduates equipped with Social skills. Only the Saudi Electronic University (Bachelor of Data Science, 8%), King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (Master of Business Analytics, 5%), and Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University (Master of Data Science, 4%) offered courses that enhanced learners’ soft skills. When designing their data/business analytics programs, universities must consider soft skills just as crucial as hard skills, particularly when the market demands them. This can be promoted by adopting experiential or project-based learning and strategies like collaborative teamwork activities.
Regarding the Business skill, the third-highest individual skill required by the market, almost 60% of the programs offered courses within this category. The market requires candidates with strong domain knowledge to provide appropriate solutions within specific contexts. This is strongly linked with the previous finding regarding the level of experience employers seek (Baumeister et al., Citation2020; Parks et al., Citation2018). The more specific knowledge and experience a candidate has, the better their employability chances in the marketplace. shows the variation in universities’ courses for the top three required categories (Software, Social and Business) by the market.
Figure 5. Data/business-related courses by category.
All of the programs analyzed in this study conformed well to the market requirements regarding Problem-solving skill. Universities included related courses, realizing that analytical and statistical skills are crucial for data/business analysts. While the percentage of courses in this category ranges between 13 and 44%, it is interesting to note that three programs designed their courses based on two categories only, Problem-solving and Software. To cover more variation in skill categories, other academic programs had a lower number of Problem-solving courses.
For the Management skill category, 70% of the programs included courses focusing on the managerial aspects of data/business analytics. For better market alignment, the curriculum for the remaining 30% of the programs may need to be revised to include courses that improve Management skills. Overall, universities’ programs aligned with the low market needs in the categories of Development, Architecture/Network and Hardware skills ().
Figure 6. Data/business-related courses by category.
Discussion
This study investigated the alignment of academic programs with the market’s requirements in the data/business analytics field in Saudi Arabia by analyzing job postings and programs’ content. With the support of Todd et al.'s (Citation1995) and Kim and Lee’s (Citation2016) frameworks, the core knowledge and skill set of data/business analytics were delineated and grouped into categories, allowing a better understanding of market requirements and assessment of program offerings.
The study found that while there is generally a healthy alignment between academia and industry in data/business analytics, market demands are still significantly higher than what universities offer. Companies seem to prefer highly educated and specialized individuals for data/business analytics positions. Accordingly, a greater number of higher education programs are needed to supply the market’s increasing demands, and universities must be prepared to accommodate them.
Within the same context, there appears to be a greater need in the industry for a variety of positions. As data/business analytics evolves according to the latest technological trends, companies must be adequately equipped with the appropriate specialists. For instance, data visualization positions and data steward jobs are less in demand in Saudi Arabian than they are in other countries like the US.
Professional experience appeared to be highly valued by recruiters, especially for candidates in their early careers. This implies that data/business analysts without experience may have trouble getting hired. A possible explanation for this might be that the Saudi Arabian data/business analytics labor market is still relatively new. Only a few jobs are found in this field compared to well-established fields, and the diversity of positions is limited. However, the universities involved in this study compensate learners for their lack of work experience by offering a capstone project or research components. These courses aim to expose learners to the practical applications of data/business analytics.
While the market needs analysis confirms that data/business analysts are expected to acquire knowledge in several areas, the current programs focus mainly on developing learners’ Technical skill. Universities fail to deliver courses that prepare graduates to be highly competent in communicating with different stakeholders or showcasing their leadership and organizational skills. By better understanding this study’s findings of the capabilities and competencies required for data/business analytics by the Saudi market, universities should be better geared to design their education programs around them, especially in the area of Social skills where there is a significant gap between universities’ offerings and market needs. Current graduates are not well equipped in this area.
When comparing the programs’ courses based on skills categories, most universities accommodated the market requirements for the Software, Problem-solving, Architecture/Network, and Hardware categories. However, incorporating Business and Management into the programs was limited. As there is an expected increase in the market demand for data/business analysts over the coming years, universities will need to introduce more Business and Management-oriented courses. This is because a data/business analyst will need to interpret, organize, and manage data within its context, not simply utilize his technical or analytical skills.
Overall, the increasingly growing market demands for data/business analytics exceed the universities’ supply of specialists. Findings from this study support responding to this shortage by creating more accredited academic programs designed in alignment with the market demand. A possible way universities can accomplish this is to work in synergy or partnership with the industry. This allows the opportunity for: (a) organizations to train and select potential future employees, (b) universities to improve their academic programs in accordance with business requirements, and (c) learners to gain work experience in real business scenarios/situations.
Limitations
This study presents some limitations. Firstly, the job postings were collected from two popular employment websites only. This was mainly to avoid duplicated entries, as job advertisements usually appear on various platforms. Future research may broaden the data collection to include multiple platforms, such as social media applications. Secondly, this study was conducted in the specific context of Saudi Arabia within a limited period (one year). Although the results were limited to the Saudi Arabian setting, certain generalizations can be made for other teaching environments. Similarities in most of the names of programs, courses, and job titles are found in the data/business analytics field literature (Muntean et al., Citation2019). Moreover, the grouping of courses and job titles was general in the sense that previous studies from different contexts used the same grouping schema (Kim & Lee, Citation2016; Schoenherr & Speier‐Pero, Citation2015). As for the time limitation, the aim of this study was to capture a glimpse of the key competencies and skills required for data/business analysts from the available job advertisements in the Saudi market rather than investigating the job market size. However, future studies can extend their analysis to explore job evolution over a longer time frame.
Implications and conclusion
This work makes important contributions to universities, industry, and prospective graduates. Higher education institutions can benefit from these findings in at least three distinctive aspects. Firstly, by developing new accredited data/business analytics programs that equip learners with the required skill set and competencies that fulfill the specific needs of the Saudi marketplace. Alternatively, universities can use the findings as an assessment measure to evaluate the compatibility of their programs with the job market demands and make the necessary adaptations accordingly. This is important in terms of the critical role played by universities in preparing well-trained graduates equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to compete in the working environment locally and internationally. Furthermore, instructors could design the instructional content effectively by better understanding the required key knowledge areas and competencies.
For the industry, recruiters can utilize the skills categories used in this study as a guide to prepare more precise job descriptions that reflect the organizations’ needs. As shown in the analysis, some job ads lacked accuracy as they provided only a general description of the roles, responsibilities, and location. Accordingly, relying on the knowledge and skills schema used in this study, recruiters can recruit candidates more efficiently, thus saving time and resources. In addition, the analysis revealed the limited extent of the most common data/business analytics job titles and roles. As the field evolves, organizations are expected to extend the positions and functions of data/business analysts to meet the needs of business environments.
As for prospective learners, it is expected that the findings from this study will assist them in cultivating the necessary skills, competencies, and attributes of data and business analytics needed in the marketplace. The acquisition of such skills will not only assist them in increasing their employability rate but also keep them abreast of recent trends in the field.
Acknowledgement
The researcher would like to acknowledge Deanship of Scientific Research, Taif University for funding this work.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
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