Data Literacy is Key to Data Science

Emmanuel Ogungbemi
3 min readMar 23, 2022
people doing data science

Data literacy is an essential concept in the world we live in today. It’s all around us, nearly impossible to avoid. Data literacy, or the ability to understand and analyse data, has never been more critical than it is now. As a society, we are generating more data daily than ever before. To stay relevant, you need the skills necessary to make sense of this information and use it to your advantage. Here are ways data literacy is key to success.

The Importance of Data Literacy

Data literacy is an essential skill for today’s world. It is necessary to understand how data contribute to the decision-making process, communicate data effectively and make sense of trends and patterns in the data.

These points are essential because they allow you to leverage your data literacy skills and expertise in the best way possible.

1) You can better track performance

Every company has to pay attention to its sales numbers, customer satisfaction levels, and other factors influencing its bottom line. To do this effectively, you need the skills to interpret data from different sources and track which metrics matter most for your business’ success.

Data literacy allows you to better track performance. Data literacy helps see how your campaigns are doing and which ones work best in business. It helps make informed decisions about what content to produce and where to advertise.

Data literacy is also vital for business leaders; it gives them the ability to track their company’s progress.

2) You can find new opportunities

With access to new technologies and resources, businesses of any size or type can tap into new markets. By tracking data and analysing trends, managers can create new opportunities.

For example, probing the social media feeds of potential customers may give insight into what they want or expect from the experience with your brand. The understanding can help you provide a better service and increase customer retention.

Data skills are required in every industry as data generation is high. For this purpose, data literacy has never been more critical than today.

3) You can make excellent decisions

When you can analyse data, you’re able to make better decisions. With data literacy, you’ll be able to see trends and make educated guesses that will help your company grow.

You can use this information to your advantage and make critical predictions that will succeed. For example, suppose you analyse your customers’ purchase habits and notice a pattern of customers from a particular area coming into your store during specific days of the week.

The knowledge allows you to set up more staff for those days to prepare appropriately for any potential rush.

Conclusion

In a world where data is fundamental to decision-making, data literacy is the most crucial skill needed to succeed. To stay relevant, you need the skills necessary to make sense of this information and use it to your advantage.

Data literacy is vital to data science because it is a prerequisite for understanding its concepts. Data literacy is also an essential skill for communicating data findings in a way that is accessible to everyone.

Next week, I will delve into the benefits of using data analytics to inculcate a data-driven culture that accelerates business growth.

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Further Reading

Quantifying the UK Data Skills Gap — Full report — GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) — Thanks for sharing, Mark Hughes.

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Emmanuel Ogungbemi

PhD in Engineering and Computing (Sustainable & Renewable Energy). Passionate about politics and data science.