Natural Language is the Key to Data Democratization

Unfortunately, in business this is often not the case. Instead, many companies strive or outwardly proclaim to be data-driven and dynamic, while simultaneously limiting access to information or relegating data to the realm of analysts.

The question is: Why? Where does the disconnect come from?

The challenge of democratizing data

Information is power. This is nothing new, especially not as tech companies such as Facebook, Amazon, and Google have built enormous empires thanks to their relentless pursuit of data.

And more and more companies are realizing the value of their data. Organizations are racing to “empower” their people with the latest data analytics tools and business intelligence dashboards, all in an attempt to keep pace with the accelerating innovation of incumbents.

Unfortunately, that only works in certain industries and circumstances. In most cases, there is a major challenge: technical skills. 

True Data Democratization Shouldn’t Require Tech Skills

Data accessibility is one of the biggest hurdles to creating a data-driven organization (for more, see: The 5 Keys to Creating a Data-First Organization). Sure, there are innumerable insights to be gleaned and benefits to be had by allowing employees to leverage organizational data, but most employees simply don’t know how or where to begin.

Customer service and sales aren’t trained to query databases… And why should they? They have more than enough on their plate. The problem is, the shared CRM that marketing and sales use for monitoring KPIs calls for so much overly-complex customization that true information exploration and actual discovery become nearly impossible. 

And while users can switch between revenue and prospect charts, analyze market share, and read every email ever sent to prospective customers, what about the unplanned use cases?

What about finding all the customers in LA with an upcoming birthday that don’t have life insurance? 

What about researching which products had the most defective claims after you switched suppliers last March?

What about all the unexpected, yet incredibly important questions that individuals in every organization struggle with that either require IT’s support to solve or never get answered?

Did you know that in 2017, 15% of all Google searches were unique? 15% of the trillions of questions and searches that users make every single year have never been thought up or searched for…

That is astounding, and it goes to show not only the open-ended curiosity and innovativeness of humanity (at least when we are free to express ourselves), but also, how fast the world and the respective information needs are changing. For companies to act and react, it is all about being able to adapt and plan ahead, to explore “what is” while brainstorming “what could be.”

So why is it that modern data analytics tools so often box in creativity? Why is it that users must select from a dropdown of options, as if there weren’t infinite insights to be gleaned from their data warehouse?

That is where natural language interfaces come in.

At Veezoo, we believe that great insights, like great ideas, should come from anywhere and that democratizing data is the key to building smarter, more functional organizations. But true data democratization is only possible when access to data can be simplified, without being dumbed down!

That is why robust natural language interfaces (like Veezoo) are the future of data analytics and the key to a data-first culture (more on that and the other keys to data-first company culture here). Only when every employee has the ability to understand and work with data (without feeling overwhelmed or underprepared) can organizations unlock their true potential.

And that is our mission – democratizing data to unlock the potential of millions of individuals and organizations to move the world forward!

To learn more about Veezoo and how natural language can help your organization democratize data and become more data-driven, visit veezoo.com.