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Due to market and technology pressures, every business is becoming digital and moving towards the goal of being a data-driven organization. Because of this, investments in data and analytics technology are high. Having more access to technology is a plus, but technology by itself does not produce value.
It needs to be paired with people who understand it. There is currently a gap between the large volume of data that is being produced, and the skills people have to comprehend it and make decisions based on it. This gap presents the risk that this abundance of data could drive more business and innovation, but it's not being used.
Through data literacy and cultivating a data culture, this risk can be avoided. If you don’t know what data literacy is, Gartner defines it as “the ability to read, write and communicate data in context, including an understanding of data sources and constructs, analytical methods and techniques applied, and the ability to describe the use-case application and resulting value.”
Because of different personalities and skill levels that are found in organizations, improving data literacy isn’t always easy. To help you along with your journey, we recommend that you include these key elements in your plan:
Improving data literacy alone is not going to automatically create a data culture. It’s the responsibility of leadership to communicate and nurture the importance of data. It’s also their duty to empower all users to improve their skills.
Trends like Machine Learning, Self-Service, Data Wrangling and Augmented Intelligence are increasing in organizations and they're helping to weave analytics right into the operational fabric of the business. They are making analytics accessible to all employees which is a benefit, but it can become a problem when the employees are not proficient in data. These trends are leading to a new mentality where data and analytics is the enabler of the overall business strategy, which requires a data culture to be established and the skills employees to be taken care of.
Take the next step in your learning and download our free e-Book, 2019 Data & Analytics Trends.
