Introduction

IDC, the market intelligence leader, predicts that global data will increase ten times by 2025. As a result, there will be more data-driven enterprises with data literate workforce. The fact of the matter is that the business landscape has become more aggressively competitive and saturated.

The need of the hour for companies is to create a data culture to follow the tide of success and achieve long-term growth. Data has become integral for companies to attain and retain their competitive edge in the market. It has become a valuable strategic asset for businesses to transform their operations.

Data literacy also empowers the workforce and leads to professional development. The higher the data literacy, the better results companies can expect. But not every company is able to improve its data literacy. In the age of digital transformation, you’d be surprised how many companies are left behind.

Let’s dive into the fundamentals of data literacy and what makes it essential for businesses in 2023:

Data Literacy Basics

Data literacy is all about your ability to read, write, and communicate data in a specific context. Employees and data scientists have to review the data critically and understand its contextual relevance to make actionable steps.

Business insights are nothing but an ocean of quantitative and qualitative data. Strategic and calculated business decision-making comes into play when you make sense of data. And employee data literacy involves understanding and dissecting data insights to help company leaders optimize results.

In 2023, it has become crucial for companies of all sizes and operating in different industries to make data more accessible and expand their use cases. And contrary to naïve misconception, data literacy extends beyond data analysts – it applies to employees and company leaders.

Data Literacy and Company’s Growth: Connect the Dots!

If the company’s workforce is data literate, it is bound to make informed decisions and discover new opportunities. In fact, how companies collect and review data can impact their future growth and ability to make future business decisions.

State of Data Literacy

Data literacy continues to have newfound meaning for companies in 2023. While analytics and big data solutions crossed the $200 million threshold last year, many companies still lack data literacy to make growth-driven business decisions.

A Gartner survey highlights that over 50% of companies lack AI skills and data literacy to improve business operations and maintain the growth rate. In the end, it’s not about how much data a company collects – it’s about how it extracts useful data to make informed business decisions. Remember, analytical data revolves around actionable insights and creates added value for businesses.

Another Gartner report shows that employees can resolve most problems by addressing data deficiencies. Data literacy can become one of the main hurdles or assets for companies. Data literacy strategically pushes companies and improves their ability to grow over time.

What Data Literacy Can Do for Companies

Data literacy determines how fast the company will drive growth. It can also determine whether or not the company will be able to sustain growth for a long time. The workforce can harness the power of data to positively impact daily activities.

Data literacy helps company leaders and the workforce see the big picture. With the right approach at the right time, data literacy helps companies boost performance and streamline operations. At this stage, you won’t rely on data scientists to help you make sense of every data element and minimize bottlenecks.

After all, a data-literate workforce knows how to handle complex data and categorize elements that might lead to informed decisions for their roles and departments from the bottom up.

How to Build and Improve Data Literacy

Boosting data literacy doesn’t happen overnight – it takes consistent and gradual efforts to make a data-centric organizational culture. You may have noticed that strategic business advisors often put emphasis on data and help companies create data literacy workshops and programs. It is the best approach to boost data literacy.

Here are some steps you can take to improve your company’s data literacy:

• Establish your company’s existing data literacy and take initiatives to improve how your workforce collects, stores, accesses, and reviews data.
• Spot data inconsistencies and gaps that might create issues in the foreseeable future.
• Collaborate with data analytics to help the rest of the employees become data literate.
• Identify main communication hurdles and ensure data is used for shared and specific purposes.
• Create a data-first organizational culture and support ideas.
• Ensure data accessibility is within limits to ensure there is no manipulation or illegal data sharing.
• Raise awareness about data literacy and touch on “why” and “how” it can help the company drive growth. Roll out training programs to make employees more data literate.
• Use data visualization tools to contextualize different elements of data.
• Ensure your data literacy activities, programs, and training sessions are engaging.
• Instead of generalizing data literacy activities for everyone, focus on how specific employees can tap into data literacy opportunities and improve their collective understanding.
• Ensure the development and launch of various products or services are supported by data analytics.
• Company leaders should lead by example and demonstrate practical expertise in data management and utilization to improve daily business decision-making.

Wrapping Up

There is a paradigm shift in data utilization and creating a data-centric company culture. Organizations are at the forefront of finding new ways of storing, organizing, managing, and analyzing data. It has become “the” factor to stand out in the market. Progressive business leaders now understand that data investing increases the value of their assets. Since data itself has become an asset, data literacy geared toward making informed business decisions has become a top priority for business leaders.

IDA & Data Literacy

Users without a high level of technical knowledge may nevertheless explore, visualize, and understand data with the help of an IDA. These platforms enable enterprises and people to confidently make data-driven decisions through its user-friendly interfaces and real-time insights. Improving data literacy is essential so that users can comprehend, convey, and apply data effectively, creating an environment where data-informed decisions are the standard. Connecting complicated data at a faster speed, making real-time dynamic visualizations with practical insights is made possible by combining IDA’s user-friendly design and its inherent goal of unlocking speed to insights creating an elevated level of data literacy for its users.

REFERENCES:

• https://www.qlik.com/us/bi/data-literacy
• https://www.dataiq.global/articles/articles/the-importance-of-data-literacy-in-the-workplace
• https://www.networkworld.com/article/3325397/idc-expect-175-zettabytes-of-data-worldwide-by-2025.html
• https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS48165721
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2017/01/20/6-predictions-for-the-203-billion-big-data-analytics-market/?sh=72ea39302083
• https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/a-data-and-analytics-leaders-guide-to-data-literacy
• https://www.precisely.com/blog/data-integrity/data-literacy-what-it-is-and-why-it-matters
• https://www.techrepublic.com/article/what-is-data-literacy/
• https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/importance-data-literacy-tiffany-perkins-munn-ph-d-?trk=public_profile_article_view