Most enterprises don't trust their data

Less than one third (31%) of data specialists, including data analysts, data scientists and data quality managers, are fully confident in their ability to deliver trusted data at speed throughout their organization, reveals a new global survey from Talend.

Friday, 12th July 2019 Posted 5 years ago in by Phil Alsop

In the Talend commissioned survey conducted by Opinion Matters, 763 data professionals (executives and operational data workers) around the globe were queried to understand confidence levels in their organizations' ability to deal with two significant simultaneous challenges: 1) Capturing, processing, and democratizing data at speed; and 2) ensuring the reliability and integrity of the information in the data streams shared by the organization.

Trust Perception Gap between Management and Operations

According to the survey, there is a significant gap in perceptions between senior IT management and mid-ranking data professionals (operational data workers), with the former substantially more confident in their organizations' abilities.

"The different levels of confidence displayed by people at a management level and operational data workers are not surprising, but it is definitely worrying," said Ciaran Dynes, Senior VP of Products at Talend. "What we see today is that organizations are struggling to deliver trusted data when they need to deliver it and they are also struggling to gain credibility internally, in the market and with customers. Organizations need to build a bridge between IT and data workers - responsible for delivering at speed - and the people in charge of building and safeguarding trust, something which is often led at an executive level. Although generating trust may come from the top, the ability to deliver trusted data at speed requires the commitment of every data specialist within an organization as well as cultural alignment. This usually relies on the work of data champions, who have the skills to lead cultural change in data handling and processes as well."

Major findings from the survey, highlighting three significant gaps - trust, speed and execution - include:

Excellence of speed and integrity control: The Leaders and the others

Digital transformation is often about speed: accelerating time to market, driving business insights or actions in real time, or delivering personalized customer experiences. When organizations succeed in combining speed with integrity, they can deliver intelligent and trusted data in everything they do. However, despite the importance of ensuring speed and trust in data, a mere 11% of respondents consider that their businesses have reached excellence in both speed and integrity.

A significant difference between between management and operational workers
Overall, people close to data (data workers) are less confident in their organizations' abilities to trust in their own data, with only 31% showing high levels of confidence. By contrast, 46% of respondents at a management level are confident in the ability of their organizations to deliver trusted data at speed.

For regulatory compliance, one of the key criteria to evaluate trust, 52% of respondents at a management level claim to be very optimistic when it comes to having achieved compliance with data regulations, while the rate falls to 39% among the operational data workers - who may be in charge of making the practical changes to deliver compliance.

Data quality confidence remains low

The survey shows that only 38% of respondents believe their organizations excel in controlling data quality. Less than one in three (29%) operational data workers are confident their companies’ data is always accurate and up-to-date.

360-degree real-time data integration is still a challenge

Having access to real-time or at least timely data accelerates changes and helps organizations to make faster, more reliable strategic business decisions, which lead to better outcomes.

According to the survey, only 34% of operational data workers believe in their organizations' capability to succeed in a 360-degree real-time data integration process whereas respondents at a management level again feel more confident (46%) in this regard.

"We’ve entered the era of the information economy, where data has become the most critical asset for every single organization," continues Dynes. "Data-driven strategies are imperative for success in any industry. To support business objectives such as revenue growth, profitability, and customer satisfaction, organizations require trusted data which can be delivered when it is needed and relied upon to drive critical business insights. Trust in data has to be paramount because without trusted data there can be no confidence in business decisions, and at that point stakeholder and customer trust will quickly evaporate too."