Having a data-sharing culture within the company is important in getting more value in your company analytics. Below is an article that discusses building a data-sharing culture.
I have summarised the key take aways below and the article can be sourced at the bottom of this post.
For decades, business leaders have shied away from sharing data — not just with competitors, but even with internal stakeholders in other business units.
This mindset is starting to shift, however, as studies back up the benefits of sharing data.
According to the latest Gartner Chief Data Officer Survey, data sharing is a business-facing key performance indicator of achieving effective stakeholder engagement and providing enterprise value. CDOs who have successfully executed data-sharing initiatives in their organisations are 1.7 times more effective at showing business value and return on investment from their data analytics strategy.
Tie data sharing initiatives to companywide goals
The most successful CDOs can tie data sharing initiatives not just to information technology goals but to companywide KPIs such as improved customer experience, cost optimisation, revenue generation, or compliance. In addition, leaders who achieve these types of results are increasingly asked to take on digital transformation efforts and other strategic objectives, Clougherty Jones said. In other words, their focus is moving from data and analytics in IT alone to data and analytics for the business as a whole. These CDOs were also more likely to see their budgets increase.
Talk about data sharing to overcome roadblocks
Improving data literacy throughout the organisation is another critical part of the CDO’s communication strategy. “When everyone ‘speaks data’ in the same way, everybody can understand each other,” Clougherty Jones said. The immediate benefit is giving employees the skills they need to make data-driven decisions, while the downstream effect is empowering employees to use data to monetise assets and drive value, she said.
If nothing else, CDOs can point to the growing use cases for data sharing, even among competitive organisations: Safety in aviation, efficiency in global supply chains, customer experience in retail, predictive analytics in health care, student life on college campuses, and so on. “There’s now a recognition that collaboration with the right amount of data sharing is not only good for industry but good for individual business, citizens, and consumers,” Clougherty Jones said.
3 steps to building a data-sharing culture
1. Set priorities. Many CDOs say they’re overwhelmed with options for using data. Clougherty Jones tells them to prioritise three types of initiatives: internal cost savings, net new revenue or other outward-facing business value, or risk mitigation. In this case, she said, risk isn’t necessarily the misuse or loss of data; instead, it’s poor operational or financial decision-making due to a lack of data.
2. Prepare the enterprise. Breaking down data silos isn’t just a matter of integrating business applications and developing a data management strategy. CDOs need to address the “emotional barriers” around sharing data, she said. “There is a fear that if data is shared, there’ll be risk of harm, or risk of exposure, or [risk of] showing a lack of performance.” It helps to tie a push for sharing data to a specific business case or strategic goal with clearly defined KPIs.
3. Educate legal counsel. The more the legal team knows about data, the better, said Clougherty Jones, who has two decades of experience as a lawyer helping enterprises navigate data-sharing compliance. Helping to improve the legal department’s data literacy leads to better contracts, better risk protection, and better-defined business goals. “We have seen so many instances of missteps,” she said. “A contract could have provided for innovative data value generation – but nobody knew about it.”
You can read the full article here, and don’t hesitate to discuss your thoughts with me in the comments. You can also email me at murray@grip6.com.au, or call me on 0407-047-243 if you want to talk about reaching your business’ full potential.
Regards,
Murray
