Data democratization: Data for me - and everyone else

One click of the mouse, a glance at the analysis results and the content plan for 2021 is already in place. For me as a content marketing manager, this is the ideal idea of how I could use the existing treasure trove of data at my employer.
So where are my SAP Analytics Cloud credentials?

International experts agree that data democratization is one of the most important technology trends of the present day. The recognized U.S. research and consulting firm Gartner, for example, lists data democratization in third place among the Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2020.

What does data democratization mean? Today, companies have more data at their disposal than ever before. However, only a small proportion of this data is used. One of the reasons for this is that the data records eke out an existence in geographically separate storage facilities, known as data silos, which are accessible to individual user groups or parts of the company by means of access authorization. Access is provided in the form of standardized queries and reports via the responsible IT department. So I have to turn to the specialist colleague to fill my content plan with data-driven life. 

In the course of data democratization, that would change: I, as an employee, would have access to all the relevant data I typically need for my daily work. So would colleagues in sales, finance, HR, recruiting, marketing and more. The available data could then support us in our workflows without involving third parties.

That sounds great. Unfortunately, after some research, it becomes clear that data democratization is not that simple. Data democratization is tied to a number of prerequisites. First of all, it needs a suitable IT infrastructure. There are the aforementioned data silos that are distributed and fed from individual sources. One way to capture all of a company's data and break down data silos is to create a data lake. Structured and unstructured data flow together in this data lake. 

A lake of data alone does not make happy. Only with the right fishing gear can a worthwhile data set bite. In concrete terms, this means that an analytics platform such as the SAP Analytics Cloud and other tools are needed to analyze relevant data. Ideally, these should be intuitive to use and have visualization options that also support IT laypersons. In case of doubt, training by specialist colleagues is necessary here. 

However, with a dashboard alone and the associated reporting, I would only be scratching the surface, as I learn in an exchange with our in-house experts. Self-service BI requires only a fraction of the amount of data that basic data democratization does. What this fundamentally means is made clear by the following definition from the Business Application Center (BARC): "The term data democracy is meant to imply that as many employees as possible are given the authority and ability to access, understand, and add value to corporate data." To stay with my previous metaphor: The fishing line practically becomes a trawl net with which I can exploit the deepest regions of the data lake. Until now, the trawl was only reserved for the IT department within the SAP data warehouse.

For example, I could use the trawl to create and maintain my own data models, plan data inflows, and much more. But to prevent my activities from degenerating into complete chaos in the form of data anarchy, there are ways to structure self-service data modeling. This can be done, for example, with the help of the SAP Data Warehouse Cloud.

For this purpose, isolated data rooms (Spaces) are set up within the cloud. The latter are set up in accordance with trust, security and governance requirements relevant to the department. They are based on raw data, which continues to be accessible exclusively to IT support in the so-called data layer.

Back to the Spaces: These contain all the data infrastructures relevant for the respective target group, in my case marketing, at the level of a so-called business layer for users. From this layer, I could then pull all the data to pull the necessary reports for my 2022 content plan. Jackpot!

The bottom line for me is that the road to data democratization is a rocky one. It is also closely linked to integration into the corporate culture. Where rigid hierarchies prevail, there is no room for democracy. Nevertheless, I believe that companies will not be able to avoid data democratization in the future. The targeted use of data generates enormous corporate added value - and for me, a content plan.