The panel discussion, in which three sponsors of TraineeNet take part explores practical, strategic and managerial aspects of data science when applied in practice. The panel discutants from REWE, Bank Austria and Siemens discuss first the context in which they operate, i.e. the specificities of their respective industries, especially since banking, manufacturing and REWE as retailer face different regulatory demands. The complex interplay of competition, capabilities and priority setting will be discussed, while trying to embed this interplay into the different contexts the discutants are in. Data science in practice faces several bottlenecks, especially in which way people see data. Sometimes the transformational potential of data is not envisioned and therefore too few resources are allocated to making data science feasible.

A different aspect is the strategic one. How should data science be conducted to best support the strategic goals of the company? From a managerial perspective what kind of strategy does it need to best employ data science and especially what problems ought to be solved? Before methods from the realm of data science can be used, proper data is needed. A key question which is discussed, is if there is a concise data strategy which gives answers as to how to change the structure of data to best serve the needs of data science in the dimensions of organizational capabilities and culture