Around the world and across industries, organizations are making huge investments in analytics technology with the desire to become driven by data. According to a Gartner study of Chief Data Officers, by 2022, 90% of corporate strategies will explicitly mention information as a critical enterprise asset, and analytics as an essential competency. However, just purchasing data analytic tools does not always lead to increased customer acquisition or loyalty, revenue or performance impacts. Creating a culture of data within your organization means changing attitudes and habits, while ensuring data is at the core of everything you do.
Tableau explains that data-informed cultures share five common elements – trust, commitment, talent, sharing, and mindset. Here are five ways your organization can create a successful strategy using data and encourage the right culture.
Build a foundation of trust around data. By implementing a standard data governance structure across the organization, leaders and their teams can be certain of a single source of truth, breaking down silos and building trusting relationships with each other and the data.
Stay committed to growing a culture of data. Leaders must show they personally value the importance of data analytics by helping their people understand the value of data and the new way of working. A transformational leader drives change from the top, empowering the organization with the right tools and insights to improve the business. Using change management techniques help your team move from apprehension to acceptance. Avaap is powered by Prosci® change management research. We empower stakeholders and end users to understand why the change is happening, leading to faster adoption and faster time to becoming a data-informed organization.
Recruit, develop, and retain talent with data skills. Harvard Business Review writes that without data literacy, many organizations have resources to visualize and understand their data but are not reaping the rewards. A culture of data includes people who live and breathe data, so prioritizing new team members skilled in data and maturing data skills in the existing team ensures everyone feels confident in communicating about and using data.
Cross-collaborate and sharing data best practices. Most business problems require data from multiple sources across different teams. Keeping data out of silos and having a shared purpose of using data to better the organization gives everyone the opportunity to do more with data. Creating an internal group of data enthusiasts brings different perspectives, experience, knowledge levels, and a community together.
Challenge the status quo with a data mindset. Part of building a successful data culture is prioritizing data over intuition or rank. When everyone shares a data mindset, individuals are curious and willing to challenge their assumptions with data or by others. Changing your perception can help you find insight and further develop your data culture.
Nehul Vyas is vice president of data analytics at Avaap. He helps clients design, implement, adopt, and leverage data analytics capabilities to reach their goals. Reach out to Nehul to learn how you can achieve a data-informed culture.