Fostering creativity with data

Not surprisingly, data analytics skills are increasingly known to be vital for our future workplace. A study from LinkedIn  found that “statistical analysis and data mining” is the number one skill that businesses value in potential candidates.

However, in reality a large chunk of the current talent pipeline lacks the skills to make this opportunity a reality. A survey from Tableau shows that less than a third (30%) of UK graduates believe data analytics will be critical in ‘fulfilling their career goals’.

Something doesn’t add up!

As the workplace continues to change, data analysis has become critical in driving business decisions. This is no longer the exception but the rule for companies today. This goes for employees in every role and at every level. Data is everywhere and staff are understandably expected to know how to harness it to make informed business decisions.

For enterprises of all sizes, getting insights from data is crucial for making smarter, faster decisions. Businesses are missing a trick if they are unable to make use of the unprecedented amounts of business-critical data they have available to them. Only by visualising and analysing that data to discovering patterns, unveil trends and reveal unexpected insights can they evolve.

What lags behind is the ability to properly ‘equip’ all employees with access to information and skills in order to manipulate it. This often comes down to a preconceived belief that data analytics software is too difficult to learn. Businesses must educate employees on its ease-of-use and value to the organisation and individuals’ success.

Self-service Business Intelligence (BI) offers an environment in which people can create and access specific data, queries, and analytics themselves—without requiring intervention from IT. This allows IT to fully focus on creating a secure, governed environment where people can be highly productive with their data.

Self-service analytics helps to create a successful analytic culture, as it enables businesses to make data-driven decisions without having to rely on IT and data experts. Businesses can improve decision making while reducing costs, identifying new business opportunities and even pinpointing inefficiencies in business processes through educating and training employees to use data they have at their fingertips. Grasping this data can be made easier with effective visualisations to communicate complex ideas simply and enable impactful insights. Visual analytics allow businesses to get beyond static charts to create multi-faceted views of data and ask unlimited questions.

Fostering creativity in your organisation starts with providing IT with the tools they need to enable a true self-service and governed environment. With general availability of the latest version of our software – Tableau 10.0 – we’ve added easier ways for administrators to manage their data. Built with the help of more than 75,000 passionate community members, over 30 features are the direct result of requests in Tableau’s Community Ideas Forum.  The update provides quicker speed-to-insight and makes it easier for businesses to sort, manipulate, analyse and visualise data. Tableau 10 gives IT visibility into the usage of Tableau Desktop licenses and IT can also control the login experience for multi-tenant deployments with site-specific SAML IdP configuration.

In order for there to be a smooth collaboration between IT and the business, it’s important in today’s workplace for businesses to challenge convention. By implementing the right technology, teaching everyone in the company how to use it and making data a baseline of all conversations, organisations can begin to push the ball forward and develop an analytical culture.

James Eiloart, Senior Vice President, Tableau Software