Today, technology is advancing at a much faster rate than ever before, and enterprises are scrambling to get their hands on the latest technology in order to stay on top of the latest trends, including various services such as AI and data analytics. It is becoming increasingly important for organizations to democratize their data and take advantage of its many benefits.
Data is the lifeblood of the digital economy, and organizations must work diligently to extract greater value from the data they acquire from customers and across their entire operating landscape. However, not all businesses are ideally positioned to maximize the value of their data assets. According to the “Big Data and AI Executive Survey 2021” conducted by NewVantage Partners, just 24% of the organizations surveyed have built a data-driven organization. This low figure does not imply that a significant percentage of businesses are not investing in data science. While they are investing, they are overlooking a critical component – data democratization.
Because of the hidden potential of data and the ease with which modern data analytics platforms can analyze and extract useful insights, businesses should consider enable everyone in the organization how to leverage the vast data that already exists in their system.
The Need for an Overarching Data Strategy
To extract all of the insights they require, businesses must have a well-coordinated data and analytics strategy in place. The most effective data strategies are those that are incorporated into the entire business plan and that provide consistent and repeatable practises, and processes for controlling and disseminating data across the organization. Furthermore, if the entire organization is involved from the start, they will be more willing to help drive the strategy forward.
Data democratization demands a strong data strategy and culture, as well as the right infrastructure to enable it. Organizations must examine issues such as speed, future requirements, cost, and the types of workload expected when selecting a deployment model. As a result, it’s critical for businesses to make this decision after they’ve established their data strategy – to properly assess whether cloud, on-premises, or a hybrid solution is the best fit for their goals.
However, no matter how good a company’s strategy and infrastructure are, it’s irrelevant if the employees don’t believe in it.
The Right Technology Stack is Crucial
The right tech stack can help companies ensure that the end product is fit-for-purpose. When evaluating choices, they should consider where they want to go in the future and how they might empower more people to use data to generate insights and support decision-making. Rather than offering demonstrations, they should evaluate the use cases of various departments and let employees explore with their own data and tools to give them a clear understanding of what’s in it for them.
Multiple analytics tools coexisting across different teams and departments can be a technical challenge, but it’s one worth addressing. Having a variety of tools available to a team will increase the chances of the right tool being utilized at the right moment for the right purpose and result.
Also Read: Leveraging Data Driven Decision Making for Profitability and Efficiency
Fine-Grained Access Controls Enable Users to Access Data
It’s critical to provide users with data sets that are relevant to their jobs. Regardless of the democratization model selected, it is critical to ensure data security and avoid duplication or misrepresentation. This can be accomplished by giving users fine-grained access controls to data.
By granting users forked access, they’ll be able to explore and manipulate data without worrying about whether the information is accurate or deleting or modifying it mistakenly, allowing them to learn more from their data without jeopardizing data integrity.
Educate Employees on How to Make the Best Use of Data
Data governance and data democratization go hand in hand, and a lack of a data governance strategy can quickly lead to, poor decisions, information overload and reputational harm. To minimize the demerits of data democratization, everyone in the company should be trained on how to make the best use of the data, understand data lineage, and how to adapt it for BI and analytics.
Organizations can greatly boost the value of enterprise data and utilize it achieve a competitive edge once everyone has a good grasp of what data democratization is.
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Prangya Pandab is an Associate Editor with OnDot Media. She is a seasoned journalist with almost seven years of experience in the business news sector. Before joining ODM, she was a journalist with CNBC-TV18 for four years. She also had a brief stint with an infrastructure finance company working for their communications and branding vertical.
