ABeam points out the benefits of Data Democratization

As businesses grow, the data that organizations and enterprises created, stored, utilized, and accumulated over the course of their transaction expands.

Data is as useful as its management, and one way to maximize the use of data is to make it available and accessible to as many staff as possible to reap its best potential.

Traditionally, data is stored separately and managed, segment by segment, with its own IT or specialist team. When a need for data arises, a staff member usually makes a request to the relevant party which could take a while to respond.

And in some cases of overloading work for IT talents, the response to such request may arrive too late or not at all. Democratization of data, which is the practice of making data accessible to all in a user-friendly manner, is one approach to tackling this problem.

Technological research centre Gartner identified data democratization as one of the top tech trends of the decade. Data democratization is the ability for digital information to be accessible to the average end user.

The goal of data democratization is to allow non-specialists to be able to gather and analyze data without requiring outside help. Essentially, it is a process that enables everybody within an organization to access and understand their data in order to make better data-driven decisions and therefore create growth and long-term success for the organization. 

The benefit for the employee is to get the most out of every data point, boosts their confidence to tackle data problems and hence help the entire organization to make aligned judgments and better choices. Data democratization also brings greater customer insight as the whole organization grasps all aspects of the data, and with the right usage and analysis, the organization can deliver a superior customer experience.

Moreover, data democratization can help the organization make timely decisions, confidently adjust its business strategies, and make proactive judgments. 

To successfully implement data democratization, an organization must fundamentally transform their digital infrastructure so that everyone can access all the data from one source. This can be achieved by using Data Virtualization, the complexity of accessing disparate sources of data is hidden from the data consumers. Data Virtualization platforms will also help to ensure that data privacy is respected, and data security policies have complied.

And to enable everyone to properly utilize the data without the help or assistance of IT talents or specialists, organizations should promote machine learning or advanced analytics automation tools. An Automated Machine Learning platform (AutoML) provides a full range of functionalities that support the lifecycle of a machine learning project from access and preparation of data to machine learning model design, training, and evaluation to the deployment and monitoring of the deployed models.

These platforms enable employees with different levels of technical know-how – from no-coders to low-coders to coders – to easily perform advanced analytics without IT help to truly create value through democratization.

Finally, everyone in the organization should be educated about data democratization, with full support from management. Continual evaluation and improvement of processes are also vital to keep data democracy thriving and beneficial. It is important to realize that data democratization is a journey instead of an end-state, consisting of ongoing activities driving the organization towards successful data democracy.  

ABeam Consulting (Thailand) provides advanced analytics consultancy services globally and has successfully implemented technology solutions that help our customers move closer to achieving data democracy in their organizations and enterprises. In addition to technologies, ABeam can also advise on planning for and implementing a roadmap that is tailored to each customer’s situation and objectives.