A DATA RULER'S GUIDE

How to Rise Above Obstacles and Increase Productivity

A maze-like illustration featuring icons of calendars and clocks, ending with a green balloon rising above it all

Ruling with enhanced productivity

When it comes to your data, you command everything from input to insight and ensure your team has what they need — you’re a data ruler. 

Unfortunately, you’re also well aware of the barriers between you and productivity. The competition. The ineffective data management. The everything-depends-on-what-happens-next decision-making. And most important, the getting to market before the market changes. 

Getting to ROI will take embracing modern data strategies that prioritize accuracy and trustworthiness, two things that will unlock efficiency throughout your organization. So roll up your sleeves. 

Be a data boss. 

Ruler Reality: Companies with strategic data practices finish projects 90% faster1 and spend 50% less time preparing data.2 

CHAPTER 1: MOVE IN REAL TIME

Get real about working in real time

Efficiency. Accuracy. Insightfulness. If you have any three jewels in your Data Ruler crown, it should be these three. Oh, and your scepter is automation.  

Ultimately, what you need is agile, responsive capabilities to adapt to anything your industry throws your way, whether that’s spotting market changes before they happen or anticipating customer needs.  

 Let’s unpack all that. 

Data Ruler Scenario

Imagine this  

Do this 

Feeling behind the trend, Selfie Esteem consolidated their data and gave managers real-time access to support in-the-moment decision-making.  

 Get this 

  • Instant insights into store performance  

  • Simplified store setup, anywhere in the world  

  • Accurate inventory and distribution management  

  • Improved ecommerce experience and increased sales  

  • More time on the sales floor for managers  

*The name might be fake, but the results are real. 

The more data we have in the cloud, the easier it is for us to set up new stores and connect them from anywhere around the globe.

Paul Reigel
Technology Director, Urban Outfitters
Urban Outfitters company logo

Don’t let a data daze keep productivity away 

Be proactive when it comes to data quality. In fact, prioritize data quality from the beginning. Without a doubt, you can measure data suitability for AI by evaluating key dimensions such as accuracy, diversity, timeliness, security, discoverability, and consumability that serve as actionable truth for your team. 

Adaptive data quality and governance 

A chart depicting the flow of adaptive data quality and governance: observe, discover, govern, standardize, consolidate, operationalize

Keep it fresh. Keep it running. Keep it invisible. 

Change Data Capture (CDC) 

Whether it’s a campaign performance dashboard, a sales forecast, or an inventory check, if it’s lagging behind, it’s leading you in the wrong direction. That’s where CDC tech shines: syncing your entire data ecosystem so people see what’s happening right now — not what happened last week — and automatically tracking database changes and instantly sharing them across systems. 

To anticipate the micro moments of the 21st century consumer — companies must be able to differentiate their brands using real-time data analytics.

Harvard Business Review
Harvard Business Review logo

Ambient analytics 

The best insights appear out of nowhere, right? The right place, the right time, and the right person. That’s what ambient analytics is all about. 

Use it to spot patterns, automate decisions, and optimize processes in real time. Think real-time alerts, predictive insights, and personalized recommendations that happen with minimal manual effort. It streamlines your work and elevates your decision-making, letting you focus on what really matters. 

Overall, remember this: Analytics isn’t a one-and-done action item. It’s an always-on, intelligent, and democratic process that gets everyone involved, not just data and AI nerds. 

DATA RULER TIP

Five ways to spot an unproductive data flow:

  • Data isn’t synced across systems  

  • Dashboards only show data from yesterday   

  • Analysts request new data sets  

  • Manual workarounds are the norm  

  • People don’t trust the numbers  

 A confident man working on his laptop with abstract icons in the background
CHAPTER 2: COLLABORATE AND SCALE SEAMLESSLY

Float like a butterfly, collab like a bee 

No, seriously. Slipping into a nature documentary for a sec, a beehive is a high-functioning, honey-producing machine because the honeybees share one purpose, with each bee playing an important role. Your data should be like a beehive: unified and seamlessly collaborative.  

Get that data buzzing. 

Data Ruler Scenario

Imagine this 

Glitch Witch Solutions,* a technology company, has loads of useful data, but it’s too complex for the sales team to use. Since they rely on many data sources with differing metrics and definitions, operating presentations and performance reviews are a nightmare. 

Do this 

Needing a stronger data culture, Glitch Witch unified their data and analytics into a single, modern web experience, rationalizing its infrastructure and simplifying the way their team interacts with data. 

Get this 

  • A single source of data truth across platforms  

  • Accurate KPI reporting that keeps people accountable  

  • Confident presentations, knowing your data is the latest  

  • A tenfold increase in analytics usage across the company  

  • Tighter alignment between IT and business teams  

 *Made you look. Phony company, real-deal results. 

Creating productivity from a data-driven culture

Unified data sets and data products 

It’s one thing to unify your data, but it’s another thing to make it useful. Enter: data products. 

Data products are those purpose-built data assets designed for specific business needs. They can be tailored to a particular knowledge base, making them super handy for orgs with distinct, siloed departments. No matter the application, data products deliver data quality, accuracy, and consistency, while also boosting data trustworthiness, discoverability, and time to insight. 

Ruler Reality: A majority of the value that a company derives from data will stem from five to 15 data products.4 

A platform for productivity 

In a unified environment, there are no more disconnected apps, misaligned understandings, wasted time on duplicate work, or delays in making data useful — just clear, data-driven collaboration throughout your organization that lets people move at full speed. No doubts. Just decisions. 

A data product approach led to 26% greater project team productivity and 44% decrease in developer-facing chatbot LLM hallucinations.

Tristan Baker
Data Strategy and Architecture Leader, Intuit
Intuit logo in white font with a dot above each capital T to make them look like people

A surge in data and AI literacy

As unification, accessibility, and productivity rise, you might see a natural increase in how well teams understand, explore, and use data (aka data literacy).  

Likewise, since much of your data management will be driven by AI, make sure your people understand AI basics, including its limitations, and have the skills to correctly and effectively use AI-driven tools. Focusing on this AI literacy and soft AI skills combo will help drive adoption and usability. Over time, your team will discover new ways to use it, track performance, and make more informed decisions.  

Remember, even though it’s artificial intelligence and machine learning, it’s the human element that allows us to work together and succeed. 

Ruler Reality: 88% of senior decision-makers feel AI is essential or very important to reaching strategic goals and increasing profits.5 

DATA RULER TIP

How to ensure teams can turn data into productivity:

  • Establish KPIs that set benchmarks for efficiency   

  • Conduct in-depth interviews with teams and other stakeholders  

    • Determine their skillsets and any skill gaps  

    • Understand how the team works and/or would prefer to work  

    • Gauge how well they collaborate within the department and outside it 

  • Offer regular training opportunities so important skills stay fresh

A confident woman working on a laptop with abstract bokeh elements floating around her
CHAPTER 3: MAKE AI EASY TO USE  

With data and AI, kiss baffling goodbye 

The power of AI to transform data’s effectiveness and insightfulness is undeniable. But don’t focus solely on the technology without helping your people embrace it. By making a work-smart culture part of your data and analytics solutions, you can create an AI-driven culture that can be championed across your organization. 

Data Ruler Scenario

Imagine this 

Fintech startup Purserk* loves seeing their daily payment transactions soar, but their outdated processes are holding back employee productivity and customer experience. Making things harder is the need to protect privacy and data quality. 

Do this 

Get this 

  • An autonomous agent with a chat-like UX 

  • Sales teams analyze customer transactions and other behavior on the go 

  • Execs use GenAI to access key client profiles, portfolios, and reporting 

  • ML models proactively address customer churn 

  • Increase in Net Promoter Scores and other sentiment metrics 

*Again? The name: bogus. The results: bona fide. 

Hit the make-AI-work-for-me-not-vice-versa button 

No code/low code 

What was once the exclusive realm of developers and coders is now a place where almost everyone can play. No-code and low-code data platforms make AI available for anyone in your organization who works with data, from chief data scientists to junior employees. Intuitive interfaces give users a simple, visual approach to building data workflows. With a simple UX, you can connect your data, clean it up, and send it where it needs to go in just a few clicks. 

Moving to the cloud is a process of evolution, and evolving internal processes away from on-premises environments is also a process of discovery.

Williams Fáez
Head of Platforms, Data, and Artificial Intelligence, Transbank
Transbank: creciendo juntos logo

Generative AI, built in 

By simply creating a prompt, GenAI does the heavy lifting for things like pipeline design, script generation, and machine learning modeling. It can also make your people more productive by streamlining complex tasks that require manual effort and technical knowledge. Built-in GenAI effectively takes an egalitarian wrecking ball to the advanced analytics skill barrier. 

Predictive analytics 

Streamlined analytics lets teams work faster, launch products sooner, target customers more accurately, fine-tune strategies on the fly, and even simplify data management through automation. Overall, it creates a mutual give-and-take where AI makes predictive insights accessible, simple, and useful, all without you needing to be an AI expert. 

Agentic AI 

As the saying goes: Once you go agentic, then life’s a picnic. Okay, we made that saying up, but the benefits are true. Promise. 

Agentic AI is your best friend for eliminating barriers to AI adoption. It can handle the time-consuming, multi-step processes of collecting, cleaning, and analyzing data (i.e., the stuff that traditional automation struggles with). It can read text data, sentiment analysis, and even generate reports in plain language. It even saves your people from having to wait on a data specialist or programmer to generate insights.  

And since agentic AI is more autonomous, that frees up your people to focus on more strategic and creative work. 

DATA RULER TIP

What questions to ask your team when it comes to ease of use: 

  • How long did it take to learn and implement your current processes? 

  • What slows you down the most during the average work week? 

  • From initial development to final deliverable, what’s the average timeline length for projects? 

  • How much time do you spend on manual tasks? 

  • How many tasks are automated currently or could be automated? 

Two coworkers working together surrounded by abstract data points
CONCLUSION  

Don’t just do data. Have data help you do it all. 

Achieving high levels of productivity doesn’t have to be a daily headache. Data is the lynchpin of a more productive organization that makes brilliant move after brilliant move. So, whether you’re on the AI-ready road already or still planning your route, now’s the time to embrace speed, teamwork, and the power of AI. Your business will be more agile, adaptable, and ready for whatever comes next.

 A person typing on a laptop as they interact with a Qlik landing page

Speaking of, here’s a Data Ruler checklist of sorts for you to work toward

  • Make AI-driven productivity more than a one-and-done action item. It’s an always-on task that needs to evolve as your business and work demands change. 

  • Integrate data and AI literacy into your work culture from the beginning. The more your team understands each, the more prolific they’ll become. 

  • Embrace — no, bear hug — advanced automation like agentic AI. It’s a whip-smart time-saver that keeps your people working at peak performance. 

So what capability will you unlock next? 

Ready to do data differently?