The Benefits of Data Democratization in Your Business and How to Achieve It.

What is Data Democratization?

Data democratization is an ongoing effort that ensures all users within an organization are capable and confident in accessing and utilizing their organization’s data. People within the enterprise should have the ability to talk about data and feel comfortable to talk to others like data owners regarding any questions they may have. They must know how to use the tools to engage with data assets and be able to use them to facilitate their tasks. 

In other words, there must be an overarching framework and culture in the organization where users feel empowered to make data informed decisions. 

 

Benefits of Data Democratization

People are smart. If we don’t know how to solve a problem, we go into problem solving mode. If we don’t know an answer, we’ll figure out who does and ask them. When given a chance to show their ingenuity, time and time again they will take what they have and go above and beyond what was expected of them. That is the idea of data democratization, which provides your organization with the systems, structure and social network to unlock its potential value. Here are some of the benefits your business will get with data democratization:

1. Empowered employees 

Each individual will be provided with more resources and will use the insights they gain from them to improve their performance. Data democratization also encourages users to access and use data, giving them more freedom and growth potential than rigid work cultures.

2. Innovation 

With each individual brain within your organization provided with further insights and encouraged to use them, it is inevitable that more ideas will be generated. Data democratization removes the gatekeepers of knowledge and work culture that prevents new ideas being generated and developed into innovations.

3. Seamless remote work and constant workflows

Today, remote work is just as prevalent as work done at the office. Enterprises hire interstate, overseas and sometimes working from home is necessary or even more beneficial. Regardless of where your employees work from, they are provided with the ability and resources to perform their tasks. Data democratization drives workflows no matter what may happen, to ensure the organization stays on track.

4. Increased overall productivity

With the above benefits in mind, efficiency and productivity is increased in the overall workforce. With each employee empowered within a data democracy, decisions are made better and faster, the organization works in a streamlined manner, and customer experience is improved. Data democratization bolsters your organization to work more efficiently and productively.

 

Achieving Data Democratization

First the data landscape must be organized and managed. Data assets of poor quality must be removed or transformed into a usable resource so as to not waste space. Users must have been trained to be able to access and use the data resources comfortably and confidently. Finally, policies and procedures regarding the data use must be put in place to provide guidelines on how to use the data and to ensure there are no data breaches.

Metadata management tools have been developed to provide the automated data governance necessary for data democratization. Incorporating metadata management solutions like Alex equips your whole enterprise with best-in-class features to ensure it is empowered by data. With the Alex Enterprise Data Catalog, your enterprise data landscape can be automatically scanned so that data sources are stored as high-quality resources. Users are able to then instantly access and use the data to unlock its value, improving their individual performance and the organization’s as a whole.

For more information about why data democratization will increase value for your business, or how Alex can help you achieve this; please request a free personalized demo below.

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