Self-Service Analytics

Chapter 1. Self-Service Analytics

More than ever before, organizations are swimming in oceans of data. But that doesn’t necessarily lead to a surge in business insights. Companies estimate that they are only analyzing about 12% of their data, according to Forrester Research. To help build a stronger data-driven culture, organizations are turning to self-service analytics. This approach provides data access to more people within the company, and allows them to combine disparate sources of data and create their own customized analysis. “It’s an approach to analytics that enables the person to access and work with data, without the dependence on someone from the IT department,” says Jean-Michel Franco, Director of Product Marketing for Talend. “It lets you find the information you need, so you can be autonomous; it cuts out waiting for someone not only to create your own reports and dashboards, but also to collect, shape, and connect the datasets that are needed for your analysis.”

To Provide the Right Tools, Watch and Listen

Tom Schenk, Chief Data Officer for the City of Chicago, has personally observed the benefits of increased access to data. The city has 33,000 employees spread across 30 departments, from garbage collection to public-safety services like police and fire departments, to libraries and building inspectors. “It’s absolutely necessary in a large organization like ours to allow individual users access to data, to be able to answer questions for their commissioner ...