In today's era, every business is required to deal with an incredible amount of data. However, collecting data and understanding it are two completely different things and the lack of critical skills among employees and decision-makers of organisations don't make things any simpler. As a result of low data literacy and awareness, many teams are held back and data analysis and digital transformation initiatives across the enterprise are stalled.
What is data literacy?
Data Literacy can be defined as the ability to read, work with, analyse, and communicate with data. It is a skill empowering workers at all levels to ask the right questions of machines and data, make decisions, build knowledge, and communicate meaning to others. Data Literacy is integral to developing data culture in any organisation, especially in today's technology-driven era where data is being aggressively leveraged to make smarter, quicker, and better decisions to drive business growth.
Moreover, organisations with a high rate of data literacy can easily leverage data to better understand the preferences, expectations, beliefs, and requirements of customers. These insights help them develop better products and services while creating a delightful experience for their employees and customers. This, in turn, accelerates business growth and drives greater revenue.
Different Data Literacy Personas
Data Skeptics: These are employees who are at increased risk of ignoring data made available to them. They prefer making decisions based on their own understanding, past experiences, and intuitions.
Data Enthusiasts: This group refers to employees who show considerable interest in the data made available to them, and acknowledge its importance.
Data Literates: They have a better understanding of data when compared to data skeptics and data enthusiasts. However, they somehow fail to ascertain which of the two is better.
Citizen Analysts: These employees can follow a structured process to analyse the campaign. They can also conclude which campaign converted better.
Digital Citizen Analysts: Possessing the same skillset as citizen analysts, they can also design and analyse A/B tests.
Data Scientists: They have the skills and expertise to employ more advanced methodologies to take the learnings further.
Data-driven Executives: They have the skills and expertise to interpret the results their teams present and make positive decisions.
Why is data literacy important for your organisation?
It's no secret in today's tech-savvy era of today that organisations that are at the forefront in the digital world are those who make the most of out-of-the-box analytics capabilities in their operations. And, this is a given!
However, there is a big line of difference between a desire and meaningful action and, more often than not, meaningful action is impeded by insufficient data literacy. This inability dents the prospects of an organisation to become a market leader while also reducing their ability to manage cultural data changes throughout the organisation.
One of the biggest advantages of data literacy is that it allows organisations to track the cause-and-effect concept in business operations. It also helps them correctly store, update, access, analyse, and interpret data and information using state-of-the-art tools and equipment.
To get started with data literacy, it's important for you to encourage all your employees - operations personnel, marketers, sales professionals, product managers, etc. to understand the importance of data literacy. Everyone should be encouraged to update and share their knowledge in the context of data literacy. Moreover, your organisation can organise or become a participant on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis to cover topics such as the art of the possible in artificial intelligence, data-driven decision making, ethics & AI, business intelligence, data storage and security, how data connects to your business, how to communicate using data, and more.
Ultimately, data literacy is more than just artificial intelligence, machine learning, Big Data, data science, or the Internet of Things (IoT). It is simply out human beings coping better and smartly in a data-infused world.
Find out how your organisation can start its data literacy journey by driving data analytics adoption and establishing data literacy throughout the organisation. Call or email us at C.I.G Consultants now!