Creating a More Data-Conscious Company Culture
Data has risen to the level of being a key corporate asset, with the speed, confidence, and effectiveness of business decisions increasingly rooted in data transparency and trust. To improve data transparency, chief data officers (CDOs) and other stakeholders must focus on automated harvesting of data assets, data search and discovery and crowdsourced curation for data classification and description.
These capabilities represent a lifecycle of collection, improvement, and reuse that supports enterprise-wide data awareness and transparency. They can be stitched and integrated together using individual technologies, however most organizations prefer to use a SaaS-based catalog that serves as a platform to provide these capabilities and support various user types, from the non-technical to very technical.
“There are several best practices that should be part of a CDO’s playbook,” says John Wills, field CTO with data governance specialist Alation. “First, the goal of creating a data culture with data transparency is one dimension of it.”
He points out this goal is a strategic, corporate initiative and allows you to define the benefits in ways that positively impact the business. “It also sets expectations for data providers and consumers,” he adds. “Second, it’s important to measure and report on business impact.”
While he admits it’s not easy, Wills says measurements that key business stakeholders will attest to are vital for sustaining investment and support.
Organizations can start by capturing the “as-is” state of data assets and providing search capabilities. “Don’t slow down the process by starting with ‘conforming’ and ‘aligning’ — that can come later,” Wills says. “Great value is delivered quickly by reflecting back to everyone what already exists.”
Finally, he notes it’s important to include data-related assets such as metric descriptions, process descriptions, terms, briefing books and BI reports. “Connecting all these assets provides value for a broader community of non-technical and technical users,” he says. “That’s how you drive data culture — everyone is participating.”
Adrian Carr, CEO of Stibo Systems, explains that traditionally, different types of data are managed by different departments using function-specific applications for specific business needs.
“In this kind of technology landscape, data is hard to share and not used in the same way,” he says. “Siloed data hampers business agility — it puts your data at risk of being duplicated across different systems, maintained separately and governed independently.”
He explains data transparency depends on the availability and control of clean, accurate, consistent, updated information. “Without high-quality data, even the most well-intentioned transparency initiatives are bound for failure,” he says. “The results could be worse than that – a negative customer experience can breed uncertainty and distrust. In that sense, it’s crucial for a business to take steps toward data transparency.”
Moreover, customer experience, time to market and the ability to compete all depend on the quality and availability of a company’s data. He noted data silos are a serious roadblock to a business’s ability to operate efficiently and deliver the level of trust and customer experience people have come to expect.
Justin Richie vice president of data at RevUnit, explains that many organizations struggle to remove silos, so the logic is often not up to date with current business practices and will need to be adjusted. “Governance is an issue alongside data quality because a common plague of data silos is how the data gets updated,” he says.
