A more human approach to data can achieve Active Intelligence
The potential of data has always been clear – but that doesn’t mean that it is easy to harness
Even with the recent trend in “self-service” to empower data use, our research with Accenture revealed that less than one in five (18%) organizations give everyone access to tools that are appropriate to their skill level.
This has been a consistent issue with second-generation business intelligence (BI) software. While many of these applications were intended to be put into the hands of business users, most remain passive and rely on the knowledge and experience of the user to be able to find valuable insights for decision-making. With low data literacy skills among employees (21% globally), and just one-quarter (25%) fully prepared to use data when entering their role, this has resulted in a workforce that avoids using data (36%) or the task entirely (14%) because it feels so overwhelming.
The true potential for business users will only be unlocked by enriching the process of generating insights from data. The market must shift to provide more intuitive services that proactively serve the information users need, while prompting them to take actions based on the insights.
Relevant data must stop being something you need to discover. It must become something that you are served when you need it in the business moment. But how can we shift people away from a passive experience of analytics to achieve Active Intelligence?
It is too much to expect of business users to constantly sift through data to find what they need to make informed decisions. When data isn’t your ‘day job’, finding the time to do this can fall to the bottom of the list. Instead, business users need to be able to easily create a one-stop shop of the metrics that are relevant to them, that they can then interact with and track in real time.
While some second-generation tools do offer customizable dashboards, the set-up process often requires a greater understanding of data and the platform than most business users have. When the process is not accessible, organizations are caught in a catch-22 and the value of the platform is likely to be limited. If the responsibility falls on the business user to identify and introduce the most relevant information, potential insights are easily missed. Equally, this same outcome can arise when the process is centralized by BI teams. While overcoming the skills gap, they are not subject matter experts, and therefore will not naturally know all the relevant questions the user may want the dashboard to ask.
Leveraging maturing technologies, such as natural language understanding, to allow users to easily navigate vast data sources to find what they need to build their personalized dashboard will finally put the power in hands of subject matter experts if the data used by these augmented analytics experiences are analytics ready and governed.
