Building a collaborative data culture: best practices for encouraging data sharing and collaboration

Introduction

You may already be using a collaborative drive with your teams to share information and efficiently work as a group. If so, you’re already part of a collaborative data culture environment !

A data culture refers to a firm’s practices of exploiting data.

A working environment is said to be collaborative when it encourages sharing information and teamwork.

Today, enacting a collaborative data culture is becoming a must-have for firms in many sectors because of its many competitive advantages.

In this article, we share with you the best practices for implementing a collaborative data culture that will make all the difference.

Building a shared data culture

Data sharing means that every employee has access to useful company data. In this regard, data sharing is a major aspect of collaborative data culture.

Promoting informed decision-making

Despite being in the age of Big Data, many business managers continue to base their operational decisions on intuition, whilst the whole point of this massive volume of data is to guide business strategy.

As of today, business managers may rely on data analysis to improve decision-making.

This is known as business intelligence.

Sharing data within a firm allows everyone to access raw information. Every employee may thus have the appropriate raw material at hand to base their actions on tangible evidence.

Increasing operational efficiency :

In a traditional organisation, one person only has access to data. Most of the time, information is kept private. As such, sharing data with teams usually takes a considerable amount of time and transmission is often incomplete.On the other hand, a firm encouraging data sharing boosts systematic and complete transfers of information, thereby improving operational efficiency.

This also ensures different teams are not unknowingly working on the same task.

Encouraging innovation :

This goes without saying, data is very useful for justifying ideas and decision-making. It may also support business innovation.

In an appropriate data sharing environment, everyone may access available information and use it to enact business intelligence improvements.

Traditional organisation in silos :

Most so-called traditional businesses operate in silos, i.e. when firms are compartmentalised according to different business sectors that have very little interaction.

This traditional organisation limits data sharing as it favours compartmentalisation.

Each team works individually, thus retaining information that could be useful to other teams.

Security concerns :

It is sometimes thought that data sharing comprise security risks. Firms may possess sensitive information that they do not wish to share with all teams. In some cases, security concerns may stem from a lack of trust between different teams, or from the fear of external cyber-attacks.

These concerns for malicious data uses strongly limit sharing business information.

The first step in encouraging data sharing is to use tools that enable the latter, such as drive solutions or a corporate network.Among these tools, there are many options for restricting access to information to certain teams. To resolve the above-mentioned security concerns, firms may define the data access structure and choose secure partitioning options.

A culture of data sharing may only be efficient if each team is aware of its operation. Firms must therefore offer clear data governance, focusing on the availability and security of information.

In addition, every employee must be appropriately trained to access and use data.

Firms must therefore offer training so that all teams may use data-sharing tools.

Last and not least, sharing data requires a collective vision of a firm’s objectives: everyone must know the purpose for which data is used.

Fostering a culture of transparency :

Firms with a shared data culture are based on transparent internal operations. For data sharing to work, transparency and clarity must be part of a firm’s DNA.

Creating a culture of transparency means making the majority of business information available and creating clear documentation to guide employees through accessing data.Transparency may also go beyond a firm’s internal framework.

For instance, working on open source software demonstrates a firm’s desire to share information with both employees and business partners.

Encouraging a collaborative data culture

In contrast to traditional silo organisation, some firms choose to emphasise team collaboration, the latter working together to efficiently exploit data.

The benefits of collaboration :

Encouraging creativity and innovation :

Collaboration means that multi-disciplinary groups work together. Within this framework, each collaborator approaches data exploitation in a different way, depending upon their speciality.

This allows different opinions to be exposed and compared, hereby collectively enriching business vision.

Collaboration is therefore an important vector for creativity and innovation in data usage.

Improving communication between teams :

In a non-collaborative culture environment, little communication is made between different departments. Collaboration, on the other hand, reinforces team communication in the aim of improving business practices.

Collaboration leads to better data flow, thanks to enhanced contact between groups and joint projects.

Promoting the resolution of complex problems :

Today’s businesses are faced with complex, unprecedented problems that require a rapid response. To answer these stakes, firms must rely on data analysis, but also on various team-specific skills. One solution to these complex problems is collaboration, in particular through teaming.

This is a new form of flexible collaboration, particularly based on data sharing techniques.

Obstacles to collaboration

Cultural and behavioural barriers :

Implementing effective collaboration within a firm may sometimes be complex, especially because of the heterogeneity and diversity of stakeholders.

Each sector’s specific jargon, misunderstandings and different objectives are barriers that must be overcome if effective group work is to be achieved.

Technological obstacles :

As seen above, collaboration may prove to be very useful. But how can this be enacted? To do so, one must be able to track changes to documents, avoid losing previous work, keep track of modifications, etc. This may often be complicated.

In times of working remotely, physical distances between employees may also be an issue limiting idea-sharing.Finally, despite the importance of collaboration, some firms consider that the technological tools required are too expensive.

Organisational limitations :

A collaborative data culture often contradicts traditional silos. In this case, even when data is effectively shared between employees, each team may be tempted to work on its own without collaboration.

As such, before implementing a collaborative culture, a firm must identify the organisational practices that are detrimental to the full exploitation of data.

How can business collaboration be encouraged?

Foster a culture of collaboration :

A culture of collaboration is co-built by all firm stakeholders, and in particular by business shapers. For instance, managers allowing everyone to express views, opinions and ideas help make collaboration part of everyday work.

This collaborative way of working should also be used in the induction process of new employees, to gradually impose this new culture.

Use simple collaborative tools :

Once this is done, a firm must be sure to use the correct tools for collaborative data projects. At ALLONIA, our all-in-one platform enables your technical and business teams to work together in total security.

Business tracking is shared, and different access roles may be defined, hence allowing everyone to develop AI projects. The ALLONIA platform is designed to provide controlled and tracked federated learning capabilities either between several projects within the same organisation or between firms. The end goal is to collaborate on building models without sharing all underlying data.

Conclusion

As seen above, adopting a collaborative data culture is a major competitive advantage. Sharing information and working together may boost project management.

To enact such a business culture, firms must define good practices and acquire the correct tools.

If you are convinced of the importance of building a collaborative data culture, get in touch with us now to discuss your future AI projects!