Tue Aug 16

Data Democratisation

Written by Heidi Badgery, Managing Director, Alteryx

What does the democratisation of data actually mean, and why is it important?

At its foundation, the democratization of data is about opening up access to data for all. If we consider this on a macro level, it is about making sure that the right people, in the right Government departments have access to the data that can help them make the best decisions for the individual citizens in our country.

From a commercial perspective, the outcome is similar, the democratization of data is about making sure that people across the business have access to the data that will help them make decisions for the good of the customer and the business in real time or near to real time.

Typically when we start working with organisations, they have access to their data centralized within a data and analytics team. People from all functions across the business submit requests for data or analysis into this team and wait for a response. This creates an environment where line of business workers with domain expertise do not have the right access to the data or the tools to uncover the insights that help them make data-driven decisions.

To become data driven and enable the organization to get demonstrable value from their investments in data, organisations must open up access to its data to all functions. This is what we mean by democratising data – making it easy for people to access their data everywhere, no matter where it resides.

The role of the data experts is critical in this process, they ensure that an organization has the right governance and security in place to protect the data, and provide enablement and direction for how the data can be best used and accessed, but ultimately the power of the data relies on the data experts and the lines of business workers collaborating within their areas of expertise, which lets everyone achieve breakthroughs faster. In our experience there is a powerful network effect, both in terms of ROI and employee engagement when employees across the business are able to access and leverage data.

The Alteryx analytics automation platform makes it possible for everyone to derive insights from their data quickly and easily – whether they are an experienced data analyst or an expert in their functional area learning how to work with data for the first time.

Who is benefiting from the democratisation of data and how is it changing businesses?

We are working with organisations in every industry today who are benefitting from the democratization of data.

In our experience giving access to the power of data to functional domain experts enables organisations to scale the return on the investments they have made in collecting and retaining data. Our customers use the Alteryx analytics automation platform to drive outcomes in every aspect of their business, in People and Culture to identify causes of employee churn and ensure they are meeting gender parity commitments, in Finance and Operations to meet critical regulatory compliance obligations, in sales and marketing to maximise cross-sell and upsell for growth and customer retention, and in logisitics to optimise supply chain and distribution.

For example, the Local Government Association of Queensland’s (LGAQ) data and analytics team used Alteryx – along with Snowflake and Tableau – to automate manual processes and drive data-led insight for action on energy usage. This approach to analytics led them to discover major cost savings for the council, enabling them to utilise their energy resources more effectively.

The Alteryx Analytics platform not only enables access but accelerates efficiency which is critical given the volume of data organisations are grappling with. In the case of LGAQ, the Association was able to execute the work of 20 analysts with a team of four.

What impact has user-friendliness (e.g. low-code, no code) had on software design? How has this affected data democratisation?

User friendliness is critical to the democratization of data. The goal is not to make everyone a data scientist. The goal is to enable domain experts across the business, in finance, HR, operations, to be able to access data.

The critical role of the data team does not go away or diminish with the democratization of data. The value to the organization and to the data science team in particular with the democratization of data, is to enable domain experts across the business to solve the easier data questions for themselves. This helps to scale data driven decisions across the business while giving time back to the data experts to work on the more complex data issues in front of the organization.

The need to democratize data is more critical than ever.

Covid has accelerated the creation of data for all organisations. It has also increased customer’s expectations of how their data will be used, customers know their data has value.

With this rise in data and how organisations can and should be using data, there is a corresponding acceleration in the demand for data resources. The reality is that organisations cannot hire the number of data scientists they need to support their data demand today. They have to find a way to open up access to their data across their business. The answer is the democratization of data.

Without user friendliness, low-code/no code, you cannot democratize data across the organization.

Recently Alteryx unveiled the availability of Alteryx solutions in the cloud, which means users only need a browser to gain access to insights, with a setup that can be done in minutes instead of days. Our innovations democratise analytics and empower every employee – from data engineers and IT to data analysts and line of business users – to make data-informed decisions:

* Alteryx Designer automates every step of analytics, including data prep, blending, reporting, predictive analytics, and data science. Designer Cloud helps customers extend the power of analytics beyond data scientists, IT, and data and analytics departments to lines of business groups.
* Alteryx Machine Learning empowers any business user to use predictions to make smarter decisions. Instead of requiring data science experts to code machine learning models, business analysts can now quickly build, validate, iterate, and explore models with a visually guided user experience while learning about data science using Education Mode.
* Alteryx Auto Insights enables everyone to derive impactful data storytelling to speed actions and decisions in the business. The solution finds stories, anomalies, and insights hidden deep in data, and provides clear summaries and explanations focused on what matters across the organisation.

How is analytics automation helping businesses in the time of supply chain issues?

Considering recent disruption, it is now more crucial than ever to guarantee that goods are delivered on time. To boost efficiency throughout their supply chain, for instance, companies might use the data from past projections to help train predictive models that can optimise inventories and reduce wait times.

By using analytics automation to look at historical data, businesses can train predictive models to optimise stocks and decrease wait times, increasing efficiency throughout their supply chain. The quality of a supply chain decision can be significantly improved by going one step further and consulting external data sources. These advanced analytics will help organisations to avoid disruption or at least minimise its impact and drive growth and satisfaction.

For example, the state government in Melbourne, Australia contracted GHD’s machine learning team to improve container supply chain processes through the collection and understanding of large datasets from industry, government, and transport software service providers. The team used Alteryx to narrow 100 million shipping container and commodity records down to 1.9 million with a 99.9965% match accuracy rate.

They then used this data to help the local and state government gain an understanding of where containers were going and where commodities were being purchased. This enabled them to better inform decisions in transport infrastructure and network planning – resulting in a faster, focused, and more productive supply chain.

What are the standout features of a good analytics tool to enable data democratisation?

Standout analytics tools should be easy to use, capture every data type source, be accessible everywhere (on-prem, cloud, hybrid), and every user should be able to leverage them.

* Analytics should be easy, and every task is do-able in minutes or hours, not days and weeks.
* The platform should cover every data type and source.
* The platform should be available everywhere, from legacy on-prem databases to modern cloud data warehouses and cloud applications, to hybrid environments and RPA bots.
* Analytics should be for everyone – all industries, all departments and for everyone regardless of skill level to participate and drive value in the analytics process.

Data-native workers reporting they are losing 800 hours annually due to 61 percent of data activities still being completed in inefficient legacy spreadsheets (IDC), it's time for businesses to adopt specialised low code/no code Cloud software that accelerate and automate analytics based on enterprise data and beyond.

With self-service, unified, end-to-end analytics platform in the cloud, Alteryx is enabling enterprises everywhere to democratise data analytics across their organisations for a broad range of use cases to deliver high-impact business outcomes.

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