Kforce survey: Quality and security dominate data and analytics concerns

These concerns aren’t new, said Brad Boyd, Kforce’s data and AI practice leader. Many companies have been wrestling with meaningful data since they began moving from paper to PC.

Successful data-driven organizations are often leaders in their industry capable of deeply understanding customer expectations and behavior, anticipating trends and quickly making well-informed decisions.

The value of such a change is undeniable.

More than 80% of Kforce survey respondents believe their business or employer has clear goals when it comes to data strategy for the next 2-3 years. But the intermediate steps – such as aligning IT and business strategy, rethinking internal processes and building the right culture –can interfere with those plans.

Below, our experts break down additional survey data and weigh in on the importance of addressing these critical areas.

Successful data-driven organizations are often leaders in their industry capable of deeply understanding customer expectations and behavior, anticipating trends and quickly making well-informed decisions.

QUALITY

51% of respondents said their company has someone responsible for data quality

Quality data and a high level of data literacy are critical to building a successful data strategy. Without high-quality data, companies may not receive accurate insights to make decisions. Data should be timely, consistent, complete and accurate. Unsurprisingly, more than half of Kforce survey respondents identified acquiring data with these characteristics as the biggest challenge their organizations face.

Data literacy is the ability of individuals within your organization to fully understand, clearly communicate and thoughtfully make decisions with data. There must be a high level of data literacy throughout your organization to ensure the power of your data insights does not go unrealized.

37% of survey respondents selected "data security" as the greatest challenge to overcome
Data security is often identified as ensuring the protection of intellectual property or operational continuity, but it’s more than that, Boyd said. Data security’s impact ultimately spans into other significant areas such as the ability to mitigate financial losses and potentially impacting the trust and reputation of their company.

Many companies in the past associated data security with physically securing data, Boyd said. Long gone are the scenarios of someone walking out the door with a hard drive full of proprietary data. Today’s data security initiatives must not only address physically and logically protecting sensitive information, but securing data must also directly contribute to areas such as regulatory compliance, safeguarding a company’s reputation, ensuring operational continuity and being a gatekeeper of a company’s intellectual property.

This commitment extends to other teams and practices within a business, as well. For example, as cyber threats relentlessly evolve, cloud service providers must actively strengthen their security measures.

“An emphasis on logical data security becomes pivotal in crafting a comprehensive cloud security strategy,” Kforce Lead Cloud Strategist Jason Ashabran said. “Integrating these measures seamlessly with data-level security strategies and AI governance paradigms is crucial, creating a unified and sophisticated defense to protect a firm's invaluable data assets.

94% of survey respondents said alignment between IT strategy and business strategy is critical when it comes to achieving their goals

This linkage is critical for helping companies facilitate the seamless flow and analysis of data across their internal departments, ultimately allowing for more thorough and innovative insights from what had been previously disparate data, Boyd said.

CONSISTENCY

40% of survey respondents said their company looks at data on a regular basis
ACCESS

92% of respondents have a general understanding of how to access their company’s data

In order to achieve such large-scale change, companies most build and nurture the right culture. For example, half of survey respondents said they have someone at their company that is responsible for data quality, but most are unsure if the data is analyzed on a regular cadence.

Companies must make it a priority to foster an environment in which everyone in the organization values and utilizes data, rather than experience and instincts, to make decisions, Boyd said. Executive support is necessary in championing data literacy throughout the organization, decentralizing data access and maintaining strict governance and security to ensure the responsible use of data.

FRAGMENTATION

77% of respondents said their company’s data is stored in multiple systems

Companies can collect data with ease, but organizing it in a centralized, streamlined operating center is a separate challenge. In fact, 95% of businesses said that managing unstructured data is a significant problem, according to Big Data Analytics News.

Kforce survey respondents shared similar feedback. Nearly 77% of participants said their company’s data is stored in multiple systems like QuickBooks, Salesforce and/or Workday.

Traditional data collection systems are not designed to manage the growing volume and complexity of data that organizations have today. Accessibility issues arise as data is stored based on the specific purpose it serves, leading to the creation of silos between separate business functions.