Data literacy: What is it and why is it essential for success?
Data literacy: What is it and why is it essential for success?
Company leaders that are looking to gain a competitive edge can do this by prioritizing data literacy for employees across departments and at all levels within their organization. With data literacy skills, employees better understand how company data works and how they can use it, allowing them to be more effective and streamline processes for the organization. Read on to learn more about what data literacy is and how to implement data literacy initiatives within your business.
Data literacy refers to the ability to read, understand, communicate, analyze and derive information from data, all while putting it into proper context. Forbes defines data literacy as using “data effectively everywhere for business actions and outcomes.” Data literacy is often associated with data science, which uses analytical methods to extrapolate insights from data.
Data literacy is usually thought of as an individual skill, but it’s also an organizational skill; widespread data literacy helps organizations achieve better business outcomes as they gather more value from their data.
With the growing importance of data literacy in organizations and the abundance of data, there is increased emphasis on establishing data literacy training programs and appointing chief data officers to continuously assess and improve data literacy in the organization.
Data literacy skills are not only required by the analytics or the IT team; all departments and roles within an organization can benefit from data literacy skills. Data literacy enables employees to ask the right questions, gather the right data and connect the right data points to derive meaningful and actionable business insights. It also ensures that all employees understand how to manage and use data in ways that are ethical and compliant.
According to a recent Qlik data literacy survey of 6,000 employees, which included 1,200 executives, 85% of business leaders believe data literacy will be critical for business success in the future. The survey also highlighted that the majority of business leaders expect their teams to make a decision based on data.
Remarkable technological strides have been made in machine learning, artificial intelligence and big data. However, there is a lack of data-savvy professionals who have the skills to use data effectively. With appropriate data literacy training, organizations will have the in-house knowledge to optimize these emerging technologies for a variety of industrial and consumer use cases.
Data literacy is also important to the user and customer experience. It helps with faster decision-making, improved productivity and data-driven critical thinking. Employees can use data literacy skills to make their operational processes more efficient, grow sales performance, and make other improvements in their job duties and responsibilities. These improvements trickle down to customers who benefit from higher quality products.
