Business Intelligence experts agree that developing data literacy in the organisation will lead to faster and improved decision-making, stronger data analysis as well as talent retention. But before launching any data literacy initiative, businesses must fully grasp the purpose and secure management buy-in across the board.
During a panel discussion hosted at the 2023 ITWeb Business Intelligence Summit this week, Kevin van der Merwe, sales director and data literacy champion, iOCO, stressed the need for businesses to communicate effectively around data literacy strategies to drive awareness.
This is also to help address the issue of data fear, perpetuated by employees who shy away from data literacy initiatives for fear of their lack of understanding being exposed.
“People don’t have the right level of data literacy,” said Van der Merwe, adding that this is an ongoing challenge. “The data literacy strategy must be an enabler.”
Jordan Morrow, chief data & analytics officer, Brainstorm Inc., agreed and said “people fear what they don’t know” and awareness of the ‘why’ factor is important.
Morrow added that the data literacy market is gaining traction, but “practice makes permanent” and this approach will attract more investment.
Esther Munyi, chief data analytics officer at Sasfin, said aside from getting the necessary buy-in from management, it is equally important that decision makers understand how they make decisions using data.
“Knowledge is a huge KPI… data is an asset, but human error is a challenge. People don’t understand the importance of data accuracy.”
Anna Nascimento, head of strategic data enablement, consumer products at ABSA, said one of the initiatives undertaken by the company was to address the issue of disproportionate misunderstanding of data across the organisation.
The right questions need to be asked to extract data and it is important that data literacy initiatives take into consideration both analytical and non-analytical people, Nascimento added.
Data-led culture for decision-making
Keynote speaker Eugene Ras, chief data officer at Distell, said a change in business culture is required for a data literacy and analytics strategy to work.
“The data analytics strategy must be aligned with business strategy. It must be cross-functional, we know that insights without outcomes are worthless.”
Ras said the building blocks to a successful data analytics and literacy strategy, include alignment of the strategy, getting the basics right and changing the culture.
To do this, businesses must invest strategically in analytics, ensure all levels of management buy-in to the programme, develop a D&A strategy, obtain expertise and maintain with talent strategy, utilise agile practices with cross-functional teams, and establish clear accountability and decision-rights.
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