How can Data Literacy Help a Company and its Workforce?

We live in a data-rich world. Every day we are flooded with facts and figures about various things. As humans, we study them and extract information from these data. And this is what we call data literacy. But in organizational parlance, the term 'data literacy' is more refined. Gartner defines data literacy as the ability to read, write and communicate data in context, including an understanding of data sources and constructs, analytical methods and techniques applied — and the ability to describe the use case, application, and resulting value. Gartner further mentions that while it is common to possess the ability to comprehend and communicate in a common data language in the business world, the capability to derive value from data using analytics can determine a company's success in a core industry.

In earlier centuries, literacy was considered as a priority, and today, it is data literacy. The International Data Corporation (IDC) says that even though spending on big data and analytics products will surpass $200 million by 2020. However, Gartner says, despite this, nearly 50% of organizations will still lack the data literacy and AI skills to achieve business value. So irrespective of the quantity and quality of data amassed by an organization, it would not matter if the employees fail to mine insightful information from it. At the same time, data literacy constituents as a significant part of digital dexterity. Data dexterity is an employee's ability and desire to use existing and emerging technology to drive better business outcomes, another vital skill for digital business. This is why it is critical for everyone in the company to have data accessibility and the essential ability to read and use data.

To make data discovery and data analysis easy for all, organizations need to democratize data and make it accessible for all. According to a Forrester report, "Data Literacy Matters: The Writing's On The Wall." Business leaders need to push for more data literacy among the workforce. They should create a data literacy curriculum that targets the entire organization. This curriculum should explain the basic database architecture and querying (SQL) concepts, different types of data. It should also explain the difference between utility and precision trade-off, bias and variance, signal and noise, correlation and causation, and the importance of narrative and narrative fallacies. These data literacy programs must align with the business objectives too. After training, leaders should ensure, the employees are well encouraged to put it in practice and experiment with the resources too.

Data literacy not only helps in the rapid growth of data collection and analysis; it also allows bridging the skills gap, enables powerful storytelling through data and visuals, improves contextual understanding of data along with boosting data familiarity. It also augments the ability to have clarity in constant market vacillation, rapidly evolving competition. It helps find out ways to use data for meeting the customer demands and addressing their pain points. So, why not become data literate today?