Foster the Company Culture with Data-Visualization Literacy
Data literacy is the ability to read, comprehend, and use data in various ways. It involves asking the right questions to make decisions, developing working knowledge, and communicating meaning and context to others. It is not about becoming a data scientist or learning programming languages. It’s about understanding the various types and sources of data, knowing how, where, and what to analyze, and ensuring that data is accurate, reliable, and useful.
Data literacy creates better business sense
According to a survey of more than 9,000 employees in a variety of roles, 21 percent were confident in their data literacy skills. Data driven decision making forms the foundation of informed business decisions. By promoting data visualization throughout the organization, businesses can give vat-ranging and creative perspectives that can mitigate the risks of groupthink and bias and take benefit of opportunities that data can help reveal.
Here are a few ways in which data literacy matters to the business:
· Data is the new gold
It’s become highly embedded in the business that 83 percent of firms in the US use it to grow the profitability of their products and services. Meanwhile, the value of data economy in the EU and UK exceeded 400 billion euros in 2019. An interconnected business landscape and the remarkable leaps in technology mean data is present almost everywhere. Anyone can collect data, but like gold, it isn’t as valuable when it’s unrefined. To extract value from data, it requires data analysis, cleansing as well as processing, and this demands the exact tools and right skills.
· The inception of data heroes
Democratizing data transforms employees into data heroes and data citizens who contribute unique perspectives in business data driven decision making. Empowering people across the organizations to use and experiment with data, analytics, and digital technologies enables them to innovate and do their work more efficiently. For instance, a survey of Chief Supply Chain Officers (CSCOs) found a strong connection between data literacy and supply chain performance. Those that underwent a data literacy program had much higher percentages of meeting several metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) compared with those who haven’t.
· Redefined focus on privacy and security.
Data literacy teaches employees ownership and responsibility when it comes to handling, processing, and managing data. The more one understands the data, the more they’d recognize its impact to the business. IT leaders usually lack the data visualization of general awareness among employees as one of the root causes of insider data breaches. With the quickness with which data proliferates, employees must be proficient with skills required to cut through the data noise while being more aware of the implications of using data.
A proactive approach for data driven culture
Technology cannot solve a cultural problem. It’s not enough to build dashboards if their users don’t (or don’t want to) know how to interpret them or use them for data analysis to business processes. To become data-driven, firms require fostering its approach to use the data beyond technology.
Nurturing data visualization throughout the firm needs this - any significant transformation within the firm builds a paradigm shift for many, and it takes maturity to embrace it. Redefining a data driven decision making also means securing buy-ins from the people. To win their hearts and minds, leaders are required to actively support the program and conveying clear vision and objectives. Adopt a top-down leadership approach and bottom-up engagement. A report that consists of the experience of over 300 C-level officers noted that people are more likely buy into a change when they understand it and feel that they’re part of it.
