EMC is known for helping enterprises store, manage and make use of their Big Data. But EMC’s internal engineering, sales and services divisions are dealing with a lot of data of their own. That’s where Frank Coleman comes in.

Coleman is an EMC data scientist. He and his team are tasked with turning mountains of EMC’s CRM and financial data into actionable insights for EMC executives and managers – a.k.a. Big Data Analytics. “What we try to do is help them make better business decision by triangulating,” said Coleman during a recent interview inside theCUBE at Wikibon headquarters in Marlborough, Mass. “We help them make sense of the enormous amounts of information we have.”

With so much data available – “Just in the CRM [system], there’s tens of terabytes alone,” Coleman said – the challenge is to analyze it in such a way that it tells an accurate story, he said. “We always say no one metric stands alone because you can game a metric or a metric can be misleading.”

That means Coleman and his team are constantly experimenting with different analytic techniques and approaches, Coleman said. Sometimes the experiments bear fruit, sometimes not. The key for a successful career as a data scientist is a curious nature, a love of math and a willingness to fail from time to time.

ServicesAngle

Coleman said Big Data plays an important role in supporting EMC’s Global Services Division. Namely, Coleman and his team supply EMC’s services team with the data and analysis they need to determine how best to service clients.

Check out the full interview with Coleman here. Coleman also talks about EMC’s internal data management infrastructure, how his division evolved from a reporting team to a Big Data Analytics team, and the importance of executive sponsorship to Big Data projects.