Even though data literacy is a critical skill for the 21st century, the reality is most professionals do not yet “speak data.” This reality will limit an organisation’s success in the coming years if the data literacy gap doesn’t close.

1. Literacy?
What Are The
Biggest Barriers
To Data

2. © 2019 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Title
Text
IntroductionIntroduction
Even though data literacy is a critical skill for the 21st century, the reality is most
professionals do not yet “speak data.” This reality will limit an organisation’s success in the
coming years if the data literacy gap doesn’t close. To try to remedy the data literacy
shortfalls, Gartner predicts that 80% of organisations will have training programs in place
by 2020. I have helped countless organisations address their data skills deficiency, and as
part of this work, I have encountered many barriers to better data literacy. In this article,
I what to share the biggest obstacles to data literacy that organisations need to
overcome if they want to compete in today’s increasingly data-driven world.
What Are The Biggest Barriers To Data Literacy?

3. © 2019 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Company Culture
One barrier to an organisation achieving better data literacy is its culture. First, all leaders
must practice what they preach and lead with a data-first approach. If the leaders don’t
require data to be used in meetings, in pitches for new products or services or to back-up
decision-making, there is little incentive for employees to adopt a data-first approach.
A data-first approach requires acceptance of change and the willingness to take action to
make change happen. This can be challenging for people. Some might have an “if it’s not
broke, why fix it” mentality that holds back adoption of new skills to improve data literacy.
This mentality is likely fuelled by a lack of awareness of how data can be used to the
company’s strategic advantage. If they can’t see the benefits, they might resist the change.
In addition, they might misunderstand what is required of them to be data literate.

4. © 2019 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Data Literacy Focus and Stages
Fear might also be holding your company back. Some individuals might fear that they
"aren't data people" and they put up roadblocks to acquiring new skills, such as
procrastinating or avoiding training sessions because they have other work to do, for fear
of failure. They might fear being replaced by others who are more data literate. While
counter-intuitive, this fear of being replaced could hold them back and paralyse them
from acquiring new skills to be more valuable.
Data literacy doesn’t require every member of an organisation to have the knowledge a
data scientist does, but some people might misunderstand what is expected with data
literacy programs. Be sure to communicate and help employees understand that they just
need to learn to read, interpret and critically evaluate data.
Another barrier to data literacy is the progress an organisation has made on the journey to
data literacy. They might not have prioritised it above other initiatives and are moving
more slowly than other organisations. Some companies are still focused on collecting data
rather than training how to evaluate and use the data they have to their business
advantage. Others are still trying to determine the tools they should invest in to get
everyone access to review, consume and manipulate data to discover new things from it. It
is really important that data literacy is improved gradually and in sequential stages.

5. © 2019 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Data
Another barrier to data literacy is the data itself. Organisations might be collecting data,
but if they aren’t collecting the right data or if the data is compromised in some way, it
won’t be able to inform decisions the way it should. Just because there is a vast amount of
data available today doesn’t mean that all data is equally valuable to an organisation.
Increasingly, when it comes to data, diversity is crucial. It often makes sense for
organisations to go beyond the data that is immediately available from primary operations
or that’s the easiest to collect because insight can be found in unexpected places. In
healthcare, breakthroughs in technology enable diagnosis via robot thanks to data
streams from handwritten doctors’ notes and medical scan images. In marketing, rather
than just looking at sales revenue, some companies are extrapolating insights from how
products are talked about and photographed on social media. Unstructured data makes
up more than 90% of the data generated worldwide, so it’s more important than ever to
examine it as part of your company’s data strategy.

6. © 2019 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Data
Aside from the dashboards and reporting tools required to allow employees in every
business sector access to data, there are analytics tools that can help humans glean
deeper insights by using technology to their advantage. Augmented analytics, where
artificial intelligence automatically takes data from raw sources, scrubs and analyses it in
an unbiased manner and then communicates it to humans via reports, can give companies
more in-depth insights than they would be able to gain without the aid of artificial
intelligence.
Companies will need to develop ways of overcoming the most significant barriers to data
literacy—company culture, prioritising data literacy as an initiative and the data itself—in
order to close the data literacy gap. If you would like to discuss how to improve the data
literacy in your organisation, just get in touch.

7. © 2017 Bernard Marr , Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
© 2018 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Bernard Marr is an internationally best-selling author, popular keynote speaker, futurist, and a
strategic business & technology advisor to governments and companies. He helps
organisations improve their business performance, use data more intelligently, and
understand the implications of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data,
blockchains, and the Internet of Things.
LinkedIn has ranked Bernard as one of the world’s top 5 business influencers. He is a frequent
contributor to the World Economic Forum and writes a regular column for Forbes. Every day
Bernard actively engages his 1.5 million social media followers and shares content that
reaches millions of readers.
Visit The
Website
© 2017 Bernard Marr , Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
© 2019 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Bernard Marr is an internationally best-selling author, popular keynote speaker, futurist, and a
strategic business & technology advisor to governments and companies. He helps
organisations improve their business performance, use data more intelligently, and
understand the implications of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data,
blockchains, and the Internet of Things.
LinkedIn has ranked Bernard as one of the world’s top 5 business influencers. He is a frequent
contributor to the World Economic Forum and writes a regular column for Forbes. Every day
Bernard actively engages his 1.5 million social media followers and shares content that
reaches millions of readers.
Visit The
Website

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