Building a Data Culture

Often, we hear, "data is the new _____" and you can fill in the blank with whatever you feel like. Data is everywhere around us and there is no denying that. If you are able to effectively collect, store, and analyze data, then you have a significant advantage over your competitors. However, data is only valuable if it is used effectively. How do we learn to do this? Introducing data culture. Data culture is an organizational behavior that encourages the use of data to make decisions. It is about creating an environment where everyone in the organization feels comfortable using data and where data-informed decision-making is the norm.

Building a data culture is not easy. It requires a commitment from everyone in the organization and a willingness to change the way things are done. This requires a shift in mentality from the "this is how we've always done things" to "what does the data say?" However, the benefits of data culture are significant, and businesses that make the investment will be well positioned for success in the digital age. Some of those benefits include better decision making, improved efficiency, better communication, and the potential to innovate. Better decision making is an obvious benefit. This is at the core of why we are analyzing data, but without a culture that supports working with data, this can be difficult.

Data is often collected to analyze a multitude of areas. One of those areas can be the overall efficiency of the organization. Are we shipping orders in a timely manner from when they were received? This is just one way we can use data to improve efficiency. Now, you're probably wondering about how communication comes into play here. Through a data literacy program, we can start to build the "data language" used to communicate throughout the organization. If someone says, "What's the landed cost of product x?" Everyone will understand what landed cost means. Otherwise, you will waste time making sure that your calculations for landed cost match up exactly. Not to mention that within a robust data culture you'll both understand the proper data source to pull your landed cost from. Lastly, if you're looking to innovate, look no farther than your own data. Innovation can occur in many ways, one of them being doing analysis on what you already have at hand. If your company has a website that you collect data from, you can easily see what your customers and prospects are searching for. If they're searching for products that you don't currently carry, you can start to do some analysis on why you don't currently have this product or if it actually fits into what you want to sell.

Now that you have some of the benefits, you're probably wondering how we start to build a data culture. Here are some tips for building a data culture. Start at the top. Leadership must be committed to data culture and must set an example by using data to make decisions. Create an environment where everyone in the organization has access to data and they are encouraged to use it. This by no means says that everyone needs access to everything, but there are some data domains that everyone should be able to see. Make it easy to access the data because no matter how much data you have, if it's difficult to get to, no one will want to use it. This also includes providing the proper tools to do the job. Depending on the level of analysis, some users may need more than just Excel to take a better look at the data. Not only should you provide the tools but provide training on data analysis and data visualization so that everyone in the organization can understand and use data. This can easily be delivered through a data literacy program. The program does not need to be an extremely robust set of trainings out of the gate but putting some focus on the "hows" and "whys" of data will go a long way to help your employees.

Building a data culture takes time and effort, but it is worth it. By creating a culture where everyone is comfortable using data, businesses can gain a significant advantage over their competitors. Celebrating the successes of your employees when data is used to make good decisions will also go a long way. When people feel appreciated and empowered to use data, they will help to encourage others to use data. Successful data cultures are not built overnight, but they can be built over time. Take the time and reap the rewards as they begin to become recognizable.

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