Data usage is fast becoming an essential part of any company’s business strategy, with several studies predicting continued and accelerated growth over the next 10 to 15 years. Greater connectivity is leading to an abundance of available information which businesses, by their own admission, are not always qualified to analyze. Seventy-one percent of chief marketing officers surveyed by IBM said their companies are not ready to make the most all the data that is going to come their way.

But graduate schools are gearing up to make up for that lack of preparedness. A growing number of them are offering MBA programs in business intelligence analytics, training students to turn data analysis into sound and profitable business strategies. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2018 there will be 1.5 million jobs nationwide for data analysis experts in the business world.

This is the result of a number of trends that are coming together to exponentially increase data generation. Among these factors are the advancement of the Internet of Things, where a growing number of devices are being connected to the cloud, and the ever-increasing use of social media, which produces massive amounts of information: according to Business Insider, Facebook generates 500 times more data than the New York Stock Exchange on any given day.

Businesses are fast realizing the importance of data analysis, and ETL tools can give users a big leg up on the competition. ETL Plus* is a highly customizable set of skills that can be adjusted to fit the needs of each business. By extracting the relevant information from an outside source and applying it to a company’s database, it allows for easy observation and analysis, and eventually to greater productivity.