How All-in-One Tools Are Accelerating Data Democratization

A majority of business leaders believe data insights are key to the success of their
business in a digital environment. However, many companies struggle to build a
data-driven culture, with a key reason being the lack of a sound data democratization
strategy.

A survey by Google Cloud and Harvard Business Review shows 97% of companies
recognize that democratizing data is critical to their success, but only 60% are
"effectively" moving toward that goal.

But what's data democratization?

Democratizing data in an organization is much more than just giving employees access
to data. It's a process that enables everyone in an organization, regardless of their
technical skills, to be comfortable working with data, feel confident talking about it, and
make data-driven decisions that can positively impact various aspects of the business.
It's an ongoing process because it goes hand in hand with data literacy, which is also a
continuous process.

The rise of all-in-one data solutions

Until recently, data was only used by a few technical specialists in organizations who
would set up and operate the systems needed to make data available and accessible to
the rest of the team. But as the data democratization trend grows, new tools are being
developed for non-technical professionals to provide organization-wide access to data
and analytics.

Of the data software available on the market, all-in-one tools that offer a comprehensive
range of solutions through a single platform are the most popular options for many
organizations looking to extract more value from their data.

There are two main challenges that all-in-one data tools are designed to address,
namely the gap between data and commercial teams, and the expensive and
time-consuming nature of the process of data maturity—a measurement of how capable
an organization is at making the most of its data.

The gap between data and commercial teams

Data and commercial teams are often siloed functions within a company, and it's not
uncommon for them to fail to communicate with each other and even get in each other's
way. Different training backgrounds, different goals, or lack of context are just some of
the reasons.

This inevitably leads to inefficiencies as each department takes a different direction on a
given project. In fact, 97% of employees and executives believe lack of communication
and alignment within an organization impacts the outcome of a task or project.

Better collaboration and cross-functional coordination between different departments is
therefore a key success factor, especially in today's world of remote work where a
company's growth and survival depends more than ever on effective teamwork.

Data maturity being an expensive and long process

Data maturity can be a costly and lengthy process for many organizations. A Gartner
survey reveals that 87.5% of companies have low levels of data and analytics maturity.
This means that individual business units are pursuing their own data and analytics
initiatives as stand-alone projects, and there's no common structure that would enable
the enterprise to efficiently leverage advanced analytics.

According to Gartner, low maturity can be the result of a lack of vision and skills, a lack
of experience in strategic planning and execution, limited budgets, and primitive or
outdated infrastructure. As a result, organizations suffer from incomplete or inconsistent
data sets, poor data quality, duplicate data processes, data security issues, and poor
coordination across the enterprise.

For data democratization to reach its full potential, organizations must first improve their
maturity, but they may not have enough time and financial, technological, and human
resources to do so. It can also be difficult to bring on board skilled data experts—who
are in high demand today—or to get buy-in from leadership and senior management to
advance data initiatives.

This is where all-in-one data tools can shine. They eliminate the need to invest in
multiple external tools or in-house solutions, consolidate and centralize all data, and
save teams the time and effort of searching multiple data sources.

Benefits of all-in-one data tools

Let's now take a closer look at how commercial teams, and companies in general, can
access and benefit from all-in-one data tools.

1. Improved marketing performance

According to a study, 47% of marketers say that data silos are their biggest challenge
when it comes to gaining insights from data.

A single data platform allows companies to create a journey map for customers that
shows how they interact with the brand over time. This journey map helps marketers
identify key touchpoints that can be improved or better leveraged. By being able to
segment users by their behavior, location, or device, companies can better target them.

2. Improved customer experience

A Forrester report shows that 72% of companies find it challenging to manage multiple
customer relationship management (CRM) tools across geographies and technology
silos.

An all-in-one data platform enables the collection of customer feedback from multiple
channels, providing a holistic view of customer sentiment and satisfaction. This
feedback helps commercial teams identify what customers want and find ways to
improve the overall experience for their customers, while data teams get to reclaim their
time and energy to in-depth, impactful work.

This is especially important because 61% of people are willing to pay at least 5% more
if they know they'll have a good customer experience, and 56% say that the quality of
customer service has a greater impact on how positively they view a brand than any
other factor.

3. Better customer lifetime value and retention

The ability to identify key metrics in real time using a single data platform enables rapid
decision making and helps increase customer loyalty and engagement. This also
improves customer retention as companies can tailor their products or services to meet
customers' needs.

4. Reduced costs and time allocated to data operations

As all-in-one data tools help companies identify their customers' needs in real time, they
can help reduce costs, while increasing profits, and time spent on data operations.
That's because they can become data-driven without a full team of specialists, and if
and when they do hire a data expert or team, they’ll be well equipped to dive right into
the work. Additionally, companies can identify when the cost of customer acquisition
outweighs the benefits, allowing for rapid growth or discontinuation of programs that
aren't working.

5. Higher efficiency and revenue

When a company has access to information about customer needs through a single
data platform, it can streamline its operations and achieve greater efficiency by
delivering products or services in the shortest possible time. This, in turn, enables faster
revenue growth.

Future-proofing your company through Data

All-in-one data solutions can facilitate the seismic shift to a data-driven culture. They
can help organizations launch their data operations in a matter of hours instead of
months or even years. They enable businesses to become data-driven without a full
team of specialists, and even if they do hire a data expert or team, they're well-equipped
to get started right away.

Meanwhile, teams in each department can focus on important tasks instead of sifting
through and pulling data from multiple data sources. Easy access to data-driven insights
would lead to greater efficiency, productivity, and profits as well as higher data security.
Customers will also have a much better experience. So it's a win-win situation.

In today's borderless digital world where data is the lingua franca, data democratization
is no longer a nice-to-have, but a necessity for organizations to achieve their goals and
gain a competitive advantage.

To succeed, executives should invest in all-in-one data platforms and take a coordinated
and holistic approach to their efforts toward data democratization, which has triggered a
seismic shift in the business world.