Data Driven - Are You? | Sejal Vora

Data is not always Big.

Data is not always complex.

Data doesn’t always need advanced technology.

Data is everywhere. And it is everyone’s business.

Simply put – Data is just information organized in a usable format.

If the internet can be considered as one the greatest inventions of the 20th century, then its bi-product – Data is going to be the biggest asset of the 21st Century. Just like how life without the internet is unimaginable, businesses without useful data are unimaginable. Data is the new oil, the fuel that has the potential to power business growth.

Unfortunately, data is still not getting its due across the gamut of organizations.

While companies spend millions of dollars in their bid to become Data-Driven, they are missing out on two significant areas:

1. One can’t become data-driven by just investing in technology that helps collect and store data. That’s just one side of the coin. The other significant piece that will make an organization trdata-driven is when they are able to put that data to good use – in terms of data-driven decisions and strategies to drive business growth.

2. The Science of Data is not an exclusive club meant for of Data Scientists alone. Companies need to stop relying on a few data experts and instead focus on inculcating ‘data skills’ amongst their domain experts as well.

Most people in an organization find data overwhelming. They cringe at the mere thought of dealing with data, spreadsheets, or analytical tools. A lot of them also believe data has no significance in their job role. This data-averse attitude in my view is causing businesses a lot more than the investment they are making in becoming data-driven.

When we want to drive a certain cultural change in an organization, we need to ensure that every employee is painted with the same brush. We cannot pick and choose pockets and rely on them to foster the changes we would like to see.

Driving a data-driven culture is just like that. Every employee needs to be given adequate training and exposure to data skills.

Here’s how we can introduce data skills amongst all employees:

1. Create Data awareness of how data finds its way into their job roles and help them perform even better.

2. Data literacy is becoming as important as language literacy, and every employee should have the ability to read, understand and interpret data.

3. Data analytics is the means to derive value from data and everyone needs to build a data intuition that will help make data analytics a lot more efficient.

4. Data Storytelling will help them communicate effectively with data to sell their ideas, persuade stakeholders, and support data-driven decision-making throughout the organization.

Allow me to help you drive a data culture within your organization.