A couple years ago, Accenture found that only a third of businesses trust their data enough to use it effectively. Only 27% reported that their data and analytics produce insights and recommendations that are highly actionable.
They identified a widening chasm between the amount of data and the value derived from it. They called it the “Data Value Gap.”
Some of this Data Value Gap relates to quality and trustworthiness of the data. And some of this comes from how well these teams know how to make sense of the data.
I like this observation from Jordan Morrow at Qlik:
“Self-service without self-sufficiency is a bit like going fishing and expecting the fish to jump out of the lake for you. You need the rods, the bait and the nets to be self-sufficient to catch the fish. That’s what employers need to provide employees when it comes to reading and understanding data.”
Here are a few related cartoons that I’ve drawn over the years: