Data democratization the key to future proofing data culture

A Guide to Empowering
Your
Organization with
Accessible
Data Insights
Democratizing Your
Data:
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Operating in today's increasingly
hyper-competitive and fast-paced
environment, everyone in the
organization must have an apt view of
the data that defines their business.
Gone are the days of having one or
more analysts on board to parse data
for all. In a climate marked by rapid
change and multiple disruptions, no
one person can be the ears and eyes
of an entire organization.
In the current scenario, every business is inundated with data from
every angle. There is pressure to utilize insights we glean from the
data to improve and enhance business performance. As a result of this
humongous amount of data to process and new tech that helps non-
technical people make sense of the data, there is a desire and demand
for Data Democratization to make better-informed decisions and respond
rapidly to what's happening in the marketplace.
Let's explain through this guide what that means, the need, benefits,
and best practices of data democratization, and the transformations
that have transpired to support this effort.
Introduction
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In recent years, there has been a significant shift towards data
democratization, driven by advances in technology, changes in the
regulatory landscape, and increasing demand for data-driven insights
across all sectors. The process of making data more accessible and
available to a wider range of people, with the aim of empowering
individuals and organizations to make better decisions based on
insights gained from data.

Defining Data
Democratization
Data democratization is when an
enterprise makes data accessible to
all stakeholders and employees and
educates them on how to work with
data, regardless of their technical
know-how and background.
It means that everyone has access to
data, as there are no gatekeepers that
create roadblocks at the gateway to the
data. It needs to accompany the access
in a smart way for people to know the
data to utilize it to accelerate
decision-making and uncover
opportunities for an enterprise. The
goal is to have anyone use data anytime
to make decisions without barriers to
access or understanding.
In a nutshell, data democratization is
all about resolving the data
complexities organizations face daily.
And with the pace of change in the data
landscape and people's requirements,
even the potential data teams struggle
to meet the belief of numerous teams.
Data
democratization can
transform companies
by unleashing the
value of
information locked
within
organizational data
stores.
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Why Does It
Matter?
Before data democratization became popular,
business users would waste ample amounts of
time searching for data, accessing it, and
waiting for approval to utilize it.
Historically, IT departments owned most or all
of the data. Business users would navigate to
IT teams to ask for access to a particular
data set, and IT would hand over a huge,
unruly spreadsheets in return.
Even though we have come a long way, many enterprises still take an ad hoc
approach, where IT teams own the data. This process creates issues for
business analysts as they can not easily access and utilize the data to
make data-driven business decisions. Some data executives fear
democratizing data because of security and privacy related issues, but in
reality, most data-driven enterprises train their employees to utilize
data correctly and make informed business decisions with this data.
This process curated a bottleneck for business analysts and prevented the
organization from becoming data-driven. It meant data only reside in one
area, and the rest of the organization had to fight to access i.e.
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What Is The
Core Purpose Of
Data Democratization?
Data democratization has numerous different outcomes, leading to greater
profitability, efficiency, and success for the business. Data
democratization serves other purposes for various departments or roles
across an organization. Here are some examples:
Sales: Sales reps use data to gauge the status and value
of different opportunities in their pipeline.
Marketing: Marketing teams utilize data to test disparate
variations and campaigns on graphics and copy within those
campaigns to reach their targeted audience more cost-
effectively.
Customer Support and Service: Currently, support teams
utilize data to rapidly gauge the facts about a customer
to offer better service to create support to rapidly pull
up customer data, involving past purchases, to get a
granular view of what's happening.
Human Resources: Recruiters and managers can utilize data
to rapidly send and find the right messaging to apt
candidates, as well as analyse and categorize the volumes
of resumes they receive.
Research & Development: Teams can utilize data to gauge
which benefits or features are in the highest demand and
adjust the product to meet consumer requirements.
Leadership Executive: The C-suite can utilize data to
swiftly get a 360-degree view of the businesses and
determine which strategic initiatives are offering the
most ROI.
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Ask around
Use the company
directory
Use the intranet
Send a company
wide email to locate the
information they need
Concerns About
Data Democratization
1. Businesses struggle to find relevant information in the massive
amounts of data they collect.
71% 46% 34% 30%
2. Enterprise decision-makers rarely have access to the data they need,
when they need it, with high quality and completeness.
46% 27%
25% 27%
Decision-makers face
difficulty accessing the
data they need
Think poor
data quality is
informing too many
decisions
Are unable to
analyze data types
effectively
Need information faster
for improved decision-
making
3. C-suite executives identify a lack of integration, user training, and a
data governance policy to their data and analytics strategy.
33%
31%
30%
Feel their employees need
more training in the proper
usage and application of data
Identify fragmented
data initiatives as
an inhibitor to their
BI strategy
Think that departmental
ownership of data creates
silos that prevent better-
informed decisions
Source: ETCIOT
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Strategies To Resolve
These Complexities
The following are the strategies and steps that you can
follow to assist and establish data democratization and
glean benefits from it.
01
02
Data Source Mapping is a critical start to data democratization,
as knowing where data comes from is quintessential to
understanding that data.
Data Accounting is just as crucial as source mapping as knowing
the source is just half the picture. You are required to
understand what is in the data sets to analyze them accordingly.
04
05
Data Governance strategies will ascertain how the data is
accessed, who accesses the data, and then treated within the
curbs of democratization and related business aims. Even with
democratization, data should be protected with encryption
processes and technology.
Data Management mechanisms should also be implemented to
relentlessly carry out objectives from data quality and
transformation to privacy policies and data migration.
03
Data Silo Directories require to be set up so that users must
locate the data they require once democratization has been
established. Enterprise can also track who is accessing what
data.
06
Middleware Strategy is typically a part of data management
(DM), is significant to unifying multi-sourced data. This might
include the curation of a single data pool connected to all or
some apt data sources or numerous data banks fauceting into
separate segments with specific set objectives.
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Benefits Of Data
Democratization
Organizations should
consider making enterprise
data readily available to
their users for many
reasons. Here are five key
benefits of democratizing
data.
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1. Expedite Decision-
making - Being able
to make decisions on
a dime, supported by
quality data, is a
hallmark of agile,
data-driven
organizations. By
embracing data
democratization and
promoting data
literacy, a regular
user in marketing
operations can
function as a data
analyst while
evaluating the
outcome of a
marketing campaign.
Equipping data users
with autonomous
decision-making can
earn a competitive
advantage over
businesses stuck in
the past.
2. Improve Operations -
Expanding access to
enterprise data
streamlines operations
among functional areas of
the business. Removing
barriers to information
means less time wasted
accessing individual data
silos or attending
project status meetings.
Within a data democracy,
for example, sales
benefit from marketing
data governance and the
ability to access
marketing data to monitor
the leads generated by a
specific campaign. And
marketers can access
sales data to see the
effectiveness of a new
marketing channel.
3. Enhance Customer
Experiences - In the
current scenario,
consumers expect
excellent customer
service — they expect
excellence throughout
their complete
consumer experience
or the sum of all
their interactions
with the brands.
Businesses that
provide every
employee involved in
the consumer journey
access to crucial
info are better
positioned to meet
consumers'
expectations and
changing
requirements. The
bottom line is that
people like to stay
informed. By making
data available to
consumers, companies
can deliver a better
overall customer
experience.
Benefits Of Data
Democratization
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4. Support A Modern
Workforce - Numerous
organizations find ways
to make sure that their
employees can be
effective while working
in remote conditions.
Data democratization
allows users to access
the information they need
quickly and immediately,
so decisions made outside
the office are equally
resounding and robust.
That brings us to the
idea that enabling your
employees with relevant
data points equips them
with the resources to
improve performance,
which in turn, empowers
your team.
5. Empower Employees -
Empowered employees are
committed and confident to
meaningful business
objectives and take the
initiative to achieve them
as fast as possible.
Simply giving more people
broader access to info
empowers each employee to
drive and influence
business growth.
Democratizing data can
also promote a collective
culture that fosters
innovation.
Now that you have grasped the benefits
of data democratization, you can
significantly increase the value of
your business data and utilize it to
curate a competitive benefit out of it
by instrumenting democratization of
data and analytics best practices
discussed.
According to Data Democratization
report, 99% of business leaders say
they see benefits once data
democratization is underway

Best Data
Democratization
Practices
Explained
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As an organization grows, so do the
volume, variety, and velocity of
incoming data and the challenges
associated with managing it.
Information becomes siloed in systems
and is accessible by relevant teams
only, offering users a myopic vision of
the data space.
An in-depth understanding of the data
ecosystem and the fragmented systems is
integral to designing an integrated
data space that offers all the users a
holistic view of the information
assets, along with the metadata and
context they need to feel more
confident about the relevance and
trustworthiness of data.
1. Gain an Understanding of
the Entire Data Ecosystem
2. Make Data Available to Everyone
In most organizations, data
integration and analysis tools sit
with IT departments that act as data
gatekeepers, with business users at
the mercy of data scientists to gain
access to relevant data for BI and
analytics. This can result in a data
management process that is slow,
frictional, and highly IT-reliant.
Businesses that wish to take advantage
of data democratization must invest in
data integration and analysis tools
that offer the same usability and
performance to everyone, from
developers to end-users with limited
technical knowledge. These integration
tools are necessary for an
organization's democratization of data
and analytics.
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3. Tame Your Legacy Data
Data democratization is not just about
making new data accessible for
analysis and reporting. It also
involves liberating the data trapped
within legacy systems to answer
questions not contemplated by people
who originally collected this
information.
However, legacy systems are inherently
inflexible and can hamper the data
democratization efforts of any
organization. To overcome the
challenge and integrate legacy data
into modern infrastructures,
businesses must invest in data
integration tools that offer instant
API connectivity to popular databases
and cloud-based systems and
applications to ensure
interoperability.
4. Empower Users with Self-Service
Analytics
For enterprises to democratize data, they
must delegate their users to access data
and make reporting and data analysis part
of day-to-day operations.
Although data integration and BI tools
and technologies have evolved
dramatically over the past few years,
finding a data management platform that
facilitates data access, analysis, and
reporting in highly consumable ways
remains an ongoing quest for most
enterprises. The solution to the problem
lies in finding a data integration
solution that lets you take advantage of
the data that resides in previously
disconnected systems, offers out-of-the-
box connectivity to BI and analytics
tools, and allows employees without
technical knowledge to manipulate and
analyze data quickly.
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5. Train Employees on How to Best utilize Data
Data governance goes side-to-side with data democratization, and the
dearth of a data governance plan can swiftly result in poor
decisions, information overload, and reputational risk.
To avoid these flaws of data democratization, everyone in the
company should be trained on how to best utilize the data, the
significance of knowing data lineage, and how it can be changed for
Business Intelligence and analytics. With that in mind,
organizations can dramatically increase the value of their business
data and use it to create a competitive advantage by implementing
the democratization of data and analytics best practices.
Use real-world examples and scenarios to make the training more
relevant and practical through surveys, interviews, or assessments.
By following these practices, organizations can effectively train
employees on how to best use data, and empower them to make data-
driven decisions.
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The Future Of
There are still a lot of issues concerning data democratization, as
companies are not ready to let general employees access sensitive business
data. Data democratization is enroute to being the future of streamlined
data management (DM), where employees can understand and access data
better, harness it to improve and enhance business growth, and deliver
better customer experiences (CX).
As an AI & Data Analytics powerhouse, Polestar Solutions helps its
customers bring out the most sophisticated insights from their data in a
value-oriented manner. From analytics foundation to analytics innovation
initiatives, we offer a comprehensive range of services that helps
businesses succeed with data.
The impact made by our 600+ passionate data practitioners is globally
recognized by leading research bodies including Forrester, Red Herring,
Economic Times & Financial Times, Clutch and several others. With
expertise across industries and functional capabilities, we are dedicated
to make your data work for you.
About Polestar Solutions
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Data democratization the key to future proofing data culture

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