Data culture

Last updated

Data culture is the principle established in the process of social practice in both public and Private sectors which requires all staffs and decision-makers to focus on the information conveyed by the existing data, and make decisions and changes according to these results instead of leading the development of the company based on experience in the particular field. [1]

Contents

These data might include but are not limited to: general economical or Social Trends in the market, sales volume of products, or even performance of staffs pointing to their efficiency and productivity. Despite the business field, [2] data culture is also applied in the social infrastructure system, such as Urban planning projects, to impact the process of data production and data practices of daily usage, such as Smart City programs. [3]

In general, to build data culture, the departments and organizations have to let the data talk itself, and trust the steering of statistics. Being successful as a data-driven entity requires the active participation of all staffs involved in an organization, therefore open access to data is significant in the process. [4]

History

The idea of data culture has been under the spotlight of business field since the beginning of the 21st century, and is gaining popularity in recent years. Although first introduced in a scientific approach, the idea is now associated with both the science field and social sectors.

Components and roles

Participants

Participants are both producers of data and people who can contribute to the data culture by making influential changes. In the building process of data culture in a particular entity, employees at different levels are all supposed to obtain the ability of illustrating their works with relative statistics. This includes but is not limited to the goal of their job, the purpose of a specific task, and solutions they could bring up according to problems pointed out by data. Also, participants are allowed to make decisions within the section they take charge of, and experience changes happened due to their innovations. [9]

Data scientists

Data analysts serve as an important part in the establishment of a data culture, as they often receive first-hand material and raw data, and the way they connect all the components together can determine the efficiency of communication between ordinary participants and decision-makers. Also, they are responsible for the analysis of information conveyed by the data. Having data scientists in each specific section of a company would be an ideal situation for a data-driven entity, therefore guaranteeing data access whenever needed. [10]

Decision-makers

Decision-makers are those who apply changes and determine the direction of development in a company. In this case, they would make important decisions according to the trends and information highlighted by the data produced either in their own companies internally or statistics of the target market they want their corporations to aim at. Also, to build a data culture, decision makers have to emphasize their intention of requiring data analyses, therefore driving the motivation of staffs to deal with raw materials. [11]

Data-driven companies

Microsoft

The Microsoft team, under the management of Satya Nadella, depends on data to drive both major market decisions and their daily behaviors. Microsoft focuses on data visualization and Advocates that participants and employees should have the right to access the company's data. The company uses tools such as Power BI to have individual workers get involved and contribute to the future of the company. [12]

Capita

Capita is a British agency that assists clients in both government departments and enterprises to understand themselves better, using advanced techniques of data analysis. Established in 1984, they advocate their clients to build their own data culture with relative database in their own field of career. [13] [14]

Socrata

Socrata is a US-based company which serves both public sectors and the civil society. [15] They assist companies and organizations reach open data from the federal government to either improve the working progress of the government or assist social groups that are lack of resources. Their core value is tied to open data and they tend to focus on corporations which are in need of funding to process data analysis. [16] The cloud-based service they provide allow government departments to communicate with the public through publishing their official data. [15]

Data culture

Data culture is a German company (datenkultur GmbH) which serves business intelligence products and services. It was founded in 2003 and is active in building company data culture since 2006. The technical services are based on Microsoft products like SQL Server data warehouse and Power BI, but the BI strategic services are not directly connected to a product line. The goal is to help controlling employees or board member to use the existing data more effective and efficient. The necessary tools are based on the business needs and not the other way around.

Counter opinions

Data privacy

Some companies feel that it is important to keep the data private at the executive level. Although it is possible for all staff in a company to produce and process the data together, it is restricted for data to be free from the approach of participants at the elementary level. Some companies use the idea of Data warehouse, a system that limits access to data. Only people in charge could access the data, and other people requiring access need to go through the assessment of warehouse staff. [10]

Efficiency

As long as data bureaucracy is convenient for open access to Databases, the large number of users might slow down the speed of processing in a particular system. Also, it might be difficult for users to search for what they want if the data bureaucracy system is not facilitated with proper tools. In this case, Data Warehouse would be more efficient for users who are not able to perform professionally when they seek for data. [10]

Rationalism

A rational method of building or expanding an enterprise is an opposite approach to an empirical one. The decisions of rationalists are often evaluated according to their personal spirit and their existing cognition of the world. In terms of this approach, decision-makers depend on logic rather than social phenomena and phenomena appearing at the front line of an industry to make changes. The fact that decision-making process is not limited to the executive team anymore lead to the hesitation of some people on the management level, therefore they refuse to develop data culture. [17]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Data warehouse</span> Centralized storage of knowledge

In computing, a data warehouse, also known as an enterprise data warehouse (EDW), is a system used for reporting and data analysis and is considered a core component of business intelligence. Data warehouses are central repositories of integrated data from one or more disparate sources. They store current and historical data in one single place that are used for creating analytical reports for workers throughout the enterprise. This is beneficial for companies as it enables them to interrogate and draw insights from their data and make decisions.

Business intelligence comprises the strategies and technologies used by enterprises for the data analysis and management of business information. Common functions of business intelligence technologies include reporting, online analytical processing, analytics, dashboard development, data mining, process mining, complex event processing, business performance management, benchmarking, text mining, predictive analytics, and prescriptive analytics.

As an ethic that spans science, engineering, business, and the humanities, transparency is operating in such a way that it is easy for others to see what actions are performed. Transparency implies openness, communication, and accountability.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Decision support system</span> Information systems supporting business or organizational decision-making activities

A decision support system (DSS) is an information system that supports business or organizational decision-making activities. DSSs serve the management, operations and planning levels of an organization and help people make decisions about problems that may be rapidly changing and not easily specified in advance—i.e., unstructured and semi-structured decision problems. Decision support systems can be either fully computerized or human-powered, or a combination of both.

Business intelligence software is a type of application software designed to retrieve, analyze, transform and report data for business intelligence. The applications generally read data that has been previously stored, often - though not necessarily - in a data warehouse or data mart.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dashboard (business)</span> Aggregate business progress report

In business computer information systems, a dashboard is a type of graphical user interface which often provides at-a-glance views of key performance indicators (KPIs) relevant to a particular objective or business process. In other usage, "dashboard" is another name for "progress report" or "report" and considered a form of data visualization. In providing this overview, business owners can save time and improve their decision making by utilizing dashboards.

Real-time business intelligence (RTBI) is a concept describing the process of delivering business intelligence (BI) or information about business operations as they occur. Real time means near to zero latency and access to information whenever it is required.

Panorama Software is a Canadian software and consulting company specializing in business intelligence. The company was founded by Rony Ross in Israel in 1993; it relocated its headquarters to Toronto, Canada in 2003. Panorama sold its online analytical processing (OLAP) technology to Microsoft in 1996, which was built into Microsoft OLAP Services and later SQL Server Analysis Services, an integrated component of Microsoft SQL Server.

Azure DevOps Server is a Microsoft product that provides version control, reporting, requirements management, project management, automated builds, testing and release management capabilities. It covers the entire application lifecycle and enables DevOps capabilities. Azure DevOps can be used as a back-end to numerous integrated development environments (IDEs) but is tailored for Microsoft Visual Studio and Eclipse on all platforms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Data</span> Units of information

In common usage data is a collection of discrete or continuous values that convey information, describing the quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted formally. A datum is an individual value in a collection of data. Data is usually organized into structures such as tables that provide additional context and meaning, and which may themselves be used as data in larger structures. Data may be used as variables in a computational process. Data may represent abstract ideas or concrete measurements. Data is commonly used in scientific research, economics, and in virtually every other form of human organizational activity. Examples of data sets include price indices, unemployment rates, literacy rates, and census data. In this context, data represents the raw facts and figures from which useful information can be extracted.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microsoft Azure</span> Cloud computing platform by Microsoft

Microsoft Azure, often referred to as Azure, is a cloud computing platform run by Microsoft. It offers access, management, and the development of applications and services through global data centers. It also provides a range of capabilities, including software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and infrastructure as a service (IaaS). Microsoft Azure supports many programming languages, tools, and frameworks, including Microsoft-specific and third-party software and systems.

A Business Intelligence Competency Center (BICC) is a cross-functional organizational team that has defined tasks, roles, responsibilities and processes for supporting and promoting the effective use of Business Intelligence (BI) across an organization.

In 2018, Tyler Technologies acquired Socrata, a business-to-government software company, that sells an "open data platform" whose goal was to help "civic developers build apps more efficiently."

Collaborative decision-making (CDM) software is a software application or module that helps to coordinate and disseminate data and reach consensus among work groups.

The term is used for two different things:

  1. In computer science, in-memory processing (PIM) is a computer architecture in which data operations are available directly on the data memory, rather than having to be transferred to CPU registers first. This may improve the power usage and performance of moving data between the processor and the main memory.
  2. In software engineering, in-memory processing is a software architecture where a database is kept entirely in random-access memory (RAM) or flash memory so that usual accesses, in particular read or query operations, do not require access to disk storage. This may allow faster data operations such as "joins", and faster reporting and decision-making in business.

The fields of marketing and artificial intelligence converge in systems which assist in areas such as market forecasting, and automation of processes and decision making, along with increased efficiency of tasks which would usually be performed by humans. The science behind these systems can be explained through neural networks and expert systems, computer programs that process input and provide valuable output for marketers.

Agile Business Intelligence (BI) refers to the use of Agile software development for BI projects to reduce the time it takes for traditional BI to show value to the organization, and to help in quickly adapting to changing business needs. Agile BI enables the BI team and managers to make better business decisions, and to start doing this more quickly.

Microsoft Power BI is an interactive data visualization software product developed by Microsoft with a primary focus on business intelligence. It is part of the Microsoft Power Platform. Power BI is a collection of software services, apps, and connectors that work together to turn various sources of data into static and interactive data visualizations. Data may be input by reading directly from a database, webpage, PDF, or structured files such as spreadsheets, CSV, XML, JSON, XLSX, and SharePoint.

Critical data studies is the exploration of and engagement with social, cultural, and ethical challenges that arise when working with big data. It is through various unique perspectives and taking a critical approach that this form of study can be practiced. As its name implies, critical data studies draws heavily on the influence of critical theory, which has a strong focus on addressing the organization of power structures. This idea is then applied to the study of data.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microsoft Power Platform</span> Family of business software products

Microsoft Power Platform is a line of business intelligence, app development, and app connectivity software applications. Microsoft developed the Power Fx low-code programming language for expressing logic across the Power Platform. It also provides integrations with GitHub and Teams among other apps.

References

  1. ↑ Ramaswamy, Poornima (June 2015). "How to Create a Data Culture" (PDF). Cognizant. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 February 2017. Retrieved 29 November 2017.
  2. ↑ Powers, Kristina; Henderson, Angela E. (25 May 2018). Cultivating a Data Culture in Higher Education. Routledge. ISBN   978-1-351-69451-3.
  3. ↑ Kitchin, Rob; Lauriault, Tracey P.; McArdle, Gavin (8 May 2017). Data and the city. Kitchin, Rob,, Lauriault, Tracey P.,, McArdle, Gavin. Abingdon, Oxon. ISBN   978-1138222632. OCLC   992119756.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  4. ↑ Anderson, Carl. "Five building blocks of a data-driven culture". TechCrunch. Retrieved 29 November 2017.
  5. ↑ Bowker, Geoffrey (2001). "Download Limit Exceeded". Social Studies of Science. 30 (5): 643–683. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.26.6449 . doi:10.1177/030631200030005001. S2CID   220879983.
  6. ↑ "A data culture for everyone – The Official Microsoft Blog". The Official Microsoft Blog. 15 April 2014. Retrieved 16 November 2017.
  7. ↑ "Microsoft Data Culture series for Developers, Data Architects, Data Scientists, Database Administrators events in Edinburgh, Leeds, Birmingham, Reading and London". Microsoft UK Faculty Connection. Retrieved 9 November 2017.
  8. ↑ "Data Power 2017 – Carleton University". carleton.ca. Retrieved 9 November 2017.
  9. ↑ Tunguz, Tomasz (26 May 2016). Winning with data : transform your culture, empower your people, and shape the future. Bien, Frank, 1967–. Hoboken, New Jersey. ISBN   9781119257394. OCLC   951028197.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  10. 1 2 3 Patil, DJ; Mason, Hilary (2015). Data driven : creating a data culture. Sebastopol, CA. ISBN   9781491921197. OCLC   904285472.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  11. ↑ Torbeck, Lynn (Autumn 2011). "Data culture". Journal of Validation Technology. 17 (4): 12+ – via Academic OneFile.
  12. ↑ "Empowering your organization to embrace a data culture with Power BI". Microsoft IT Showcase. Retrieved 16 November 2017.
  13. ↑ "Our story". Capita. Retrieved 16 November 2017.
  14. ↑ "About us". Capita. Retrieved 9 November 2017.
  15. 1 2 "The Data Platform for 21st Century Digital Government". Socrata, Inc. Archived from the original on 15 March 2019. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
  16. ↑ "What Is Socrata? Learn All About the Company". Socrata, Inc. Archived from the original on 2 March 2019. Retrieved 16 November 2017.
  17. ↑ Barlow, Mike (2013). The culture of big data. Sebastopol, Calif.: O'Reilly Media. ISBN   9781491946725. OCLC   867854355.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.