Academia.edu continues to make scientific research a more open and networked practice, raising $11.1 million in Series B funding from Khosla Ventures, Spark Capital and True Ventures today. According to AllThingsD, we learned that the San Francisco-based company now has 4.5 million registered researchers and eight million monthly visitors. Reiterating the growing interest in data-driven startups is ResearchGate, which recently raised a $35 million Series C round. Hello Big Data.

The more data science receives funding, the more this trend presents a business opportunity. The true hidden gem of data science is storytelling, and the ability to extrapolate data to tell a story that others with access to the same data simply don’t see. Seeing meaning in the data where others don’t is a true game changer in the data science and business intelligence conversation.  But how do you turn data science into profit?

Here are some quick and easy steps from Kumar Srivastava is the Product Management Lead for Apigee Insights at Apigee on turning your data science into a business science.

3 ways to turn data science into business science

• Arm your data scientists with the business context

Ensure that your data scientists do not work in isolation and that they interface and work very closely with the business owner and the product managers. Data scientists need to understand the business drivers, business critical issues, and the enterprise and product strategy.

• Capture business state as KPIs

Push your data scientists to implement business-focused key performance indicators (KPIs) using the data that is being generated through the use of your products and services. Encourage your data scientists to fill the gaps in your instrumentation required to implement the defined KPIs.

• Encourage insights that predict a result from a recommended action

Encourage your data scientists to deliver insights that take the following shape:

1. Predictions of enhanced business value
2. Demonstrated through desired movement in business KPIs when recommended actions are implemented

Data science as business science. The concepts of storytelling and culture are making there ways deep into Big Data, with business intelligence being the key differentiator in successful understanding of the data.

About Kumar

Kumar Srivastava is the Product Management Lead for Apigee Insights and Apigee Analytics products at Apigee. Before Apigee, he was at Microsoft where he worked on several different products such as Bing, Online Safety, Hotmail Anti-Spam and PC Safety and Security services. Prior to Microsoft, he was at Columbia University working as a graduate researcher in areas such as VOIP Spam, Social Networks and Trust, Authentication & Identity Management systems.