Democracy Rules!

It is the era of data. It is constantly changing the way we live, work and play. Most importantly, it is changing the way we do business. The ability to harness and manage data, effectively analyze it, and act accordingly allows enterprises to thrive in a constantly evolving market. Yet, organizations obstruct their path to progress with traditional structures that restrict data to those with the resources and know-how to collect, process, and analyze it. The result is a significant gap between data and decisions and a heavy burden on technical teams. It complicates garnering real-time insights and prevents enterprises from acting on relevant data promptly. 

This is a problem. The solution? Democratize data and empower employees with the right tools that help them access and work with the data they need to solve problems, draw insights, and take action. Let’s take a closer look at why data democratization is vital for businesses and look at some of the tools that can assist with this. 

The Problem With Data Silos

The restrictions imposed on data access lead to the creation of data silos. These are isolated repositories of data held by different departments within an organization. Siloed data creates barriers to information sharing and collaboration across departments. Leaders also struggle to get a holistic view of enterprise data.

 Some of the challenges data silos pose include:

Data Inaccuracy: Silos prevent data from being shared, and often each department’s analysis is limited by their view, reducing the chances of identifying enterprise-wide inefficiencies. Furthermore, when data is siloed, the same information is often stored in different databases, which results in inconsistencies if it is not updated synchronously. These discrepancies slow down processes and hinder data-driven decisions. 

Hinders Collaboration: Collaboration is impeded when data is inaccessible or controlled by IT teams. Cross-functional projects that require data from multiple sources become challenging to execute as all stakeholders need help to view relevant data. 

Data Security Risks: Data silos can also increase data security risks. As various departments maintain their data, it becomes challenging to implement consistent security measures and controls, leaving an organization vulnerable to breaches. For instance, some data silos are stored by individual users in Excel spreadsheets or online business tools. This increases organizations' data security and privacy risks if they need suitable controls. 

Dependency On IT: Not all employees have the technical expertise to analyze and interpret data. Relying on IT teams for data access and analysis limits the larger workforce's ability to make data-driven decisions. IT teams also become inundated with data requests, diverting their focus from strategic initiatives. This often results in overworked IT staff and slower response times for data access. 

These challenges make it evident that while businesses have reasons for their don’t-share-unless approach to data, it is detrimental to their growth, and they must learn to democratize data. 

What Is Data Democratization?

Data democratization, as the term suggests, means that all employees have access to the data they need, eliminating gatekeepers that slow down the data access and interpretation process. It enables enterprises to make data-driven decisions by creating systems and adopting tools that use a no-code or low-code approach to allow employees, even with a meager or no technical background to access and understand the data they need with ease. Data democratization thus becomes an enterprise’s gateway to strategic decision-making.

While democratizing data, security is a high priority and a comprehensive security strategy is a must. Democratization simplifies data-related processes from storage architecture to management, but this transparency must also come with strict enterprise-wide security processes and deliberate attention to data governance and integrity - from adopting new types of employee training to creating new policies for data storage and access.

Why Data Democratization Is The Right Move

“Data sharing is the way to optimize higher-relevant data, generating more robust data and analytics to solve business challenges and meet enterprise goals,” Lydia Clougherty Jones, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner, points out. And according to a survey conducted by Gartner*, promoting data sharing and breaking down data silos was most often linked to high-performing D&A teams providing value to the organization. Organizations that promoted data sharing were predicted to outperform their peers on most business value metrics.

Let’s break down some of the critical impacts that data democratization has on an organization. 

Effective Data-Driven Decisions

Data democracy cultivates a data-driven culture within an organization and encourages data literacy. It ensures that stakeholders at all levels have access to timely and accurate information, leading to quicker, more effective actions and potentially better outcomes. 

Better Resource Allocation

Democratizing data allows employees across the board to access and analyze data independently. This reduces the burden on IT teams and will enable them to focus on other tasks like strategic projects and maintaining data security.

Increased Collaboration

Breaking down data silos encourages collaboration and knowledge sharing across departments. It boosts teamwork and creates opportunities for innovation.

Competitive Advantage

Enterprises that empower their employees with data are better positioned to innovate and gain a competitive edge. They are more agile in responding to changing market conditions and making decisions or creating strategies that put them ahead of the curve. 

Tools For Democracy

Data democratization is no longer an ideal but a possibility. Technological innovations that have entered the digital space have contributed to not just making data accessible but also helping employees without technical backgrounds to make sense of it. These tools include:

• Data visualization or virtualization software that retrieves and manipulates data without the need for technological know-how and presents it in a format that is easy to analyze. It also helps eliminate the need to clean up inconsistencies in data or different file formats.

• Cloud storage and ERP systems that centralize data and help manage and secure it effectively. 

• Self-service BI applications that offer crucial capabilities to augment and automate data analytics and discovery.

• Integration of AI in BI, which leverages machine learning to automate data retrieval and analysis. 

AirQuery: Empowering Enterprises To Democratize Data

AirQuery offers a wide range of BI tools that simplify data management and offer enterprises complete data empowerment, enabling self-sufficiency in accessing, manipulating, and deriving insights from data. It provides a developer-friendly platform to build systems for making data accessible, irrespective of coding know-how. Some of its offerings that help an organization democratize data include:

Watch Now: How AirQurey can help your business.

AurQuery’s Augmatica

AirQuery’s innovative AI solution for BI, Augmatica, is designed to solve several business problems ranging from an overwhelming velocity of data and questions to chaotic situations. 

It is a zero-touch technology that sets businesses up for success with minimum time, effort, and configuration complications. It is also designed to infuse AI technology to look up metadata and accurate data to provide augmented results.

It enables users with little to no technical knowledge to:

• Effectively deal with time constraints
• Locate information with ease and avoid incorrect or outdated information
• Simplify complex and inflexible data structures and systems
• Provide a contextual layer to existing BI data
• Execute jobs effectively 

Watch Now: AI solutions for all your BI needs

Quicklets

Targeted information is at your fingertips with AirQuery Quicklets. Quicklets pull up specific information for specific functions, enabling users to quickly get precise, context-relevant information. Quicklets assist with setting up a system to access information on business-critical dimensions. They can be configured to source data from several real-time or central sources, ensuring that all team members have access to the same information. They help democratize data by eliminating miscommunication and poor coordination issues. Quicklets can also be used to access information on multiple parameters as well as allow users to send requests, asking for data that might be missing.

Read Now: How Quicklets can help users access data ASAP

Offline Access To Cloud Data

AirQuery’s range of tools like Excel SQLEdge, XLEdge, and GLSense allow users to directly access enterprise data from cloud ERP systems like Oracle Fusion Cloud via Excel. These tools seamlessly integrate with Excel, allowing users to run SQLs to pull specific information, analyze it, and create reports offline without downloading additional desktop software. It enables all employees with basic knowledge of SQLs to develop financial or analytical reports with ease. 

Read Now: Master reporting with Excel SQLEdge.

Say Yes to Data Democratization

Democratizing data isn’t just an option but a necessity if an organization is to keep up with evolving trends and weather unforeseen challenges. Bear in mind, though, that democratizing data will need strong governance to ensure the secure management of data. That being said, platforms like AirQuery offer an elegant solution to counteract the challenges posed by data silos and overreliance on IT teams. As organizations continue to recognize the importance of data, platforms like AirQuery become indispensable tools in the journey toward democratizing data and harnessing its full potential.

Try AirQuery’s unique BI solutions yourself. Get a demo at airquery.com