Data Democracy Seeks To Empower Everyone For Transformative Change

By Upuli de Abrew, co-founder and director at Insight Consulting

In January, a Time magazine article called 2024 a make-or-break year for democracy with more than half of the planets population heading to the polls. South Africans saw peaceful democracy at play when the ruling party lost its majority for the first time since 1994. Dozens of other countries had elections with varying degrees of peaceful acceptance of the results. The year of democracy climax is no doubt the US general election.

While politics around the world can be described as messy, the goal of democracy the end as it were is equal rights for all. It is the democratisation of choice, voice, opportunity and more. This, despite challenges, is a beautiful ideal that many dedicate their lives towards either achieving or protecting. This ideal has the power to reshape how we approach data in the business world. Why? Because data is fuelling our digital age.

However, many organisations today, while familiar with the term data democratisation, are still stuck in the opposite of a democracy: a data autocracy where control and access is limited to a select few. While many may talk about data democracy and enablement, in practice they only enable a part of it. To be liberal and agile with data requires the confidence to enable knowledge workers at all levels of an organisation. While tools and processes play an important role here, cultural change is one of the biggest drivers of true data democratisation.

A major barrier to the cultural change required is fear. This is not just a top-down fear of relinquishing control, its also a fear driven from the bottom up with concerns around job security. In other words, as in the world of politics, much of the resistance comes from a fear about the prospect of transformative change.