Data-driven work means that decisions are made based on reliable, shared insights. Not because it’s possible, but because it helps us make better choices. It’s about steering, accounting for actions, and making adjustments based on facts that the organization recognizes and trusts. That sounds logical. And yet, in many organizations, data is quietly being pushed toward the IT department.
If we’re honest, it’s not surprising that data ends up with IT. After all, data resides in systems. Systems are managed by IT. And when something needs to be done with data, IT seems like the logical place to start. This is how dashboards “for the business” are created—reports that are technically sound but go unused, and data platforms that require a lot of effort but are understood mainly by specialists.
The result is a silent division of roles:
Data-driven work thus becomes something that’s done, rather than something that’s used.
Why is this so persistent
This pattern isn’t the result of unwillingness or incompetence. It’s logical behavior in complex organizations as we know them today. IT wants to help. The business is busy with day-to-day operations, and as long as results aren’t immediately visible, data remains something abstract. But data-driven work requires a different approach. The questions must come from the business side. That way, data is used to support concrete decisions, and responsibility for using data lies where decisions are made. As long as data is seen as an “IT thing,” the disconnect will persist.
What goes wrong
When data is primarily the domain of IT, familiar problems arise. Insights don’t address the real questions. Reports aren’t trusted or used. And new initiatives fail because no one knows exactly who is responsible for what. The risk is that data-driven work will be seen as “something that doesn’t work,” while the real problem is that it has been placed in the wrong department.
How organizations can make progress in this area
In organizations that are making progress in this area, we see one key difference. They don’t transfer ownership of data entirely to the business; instead, they share ownership with the business. This is a clear hallmark of a mature (IT) organization. And that ownership starts with one simple question: Which decision(s) do we want to be better able to make together?
From there, we look at:
What data is needed for that
Who understands that data
And who is responsible for its use
IT plays a crucial role in this, but not as the owner of the problem. IT ensures reliability, accessibility, and consistency. The business determines the direction and the use. In this way, data becomes a tool, not an end in itself.
Start small
At Enable U, we see this tension every day. We help organizations extract data from systems, connect it, and make it reliably available—but always in service of a specific question, a process, or a decision. We help IT create peace of mind and clarity, and we help the business actually use the data. Not by changing everything at once, but by starting small and making value visible.
Data-driven work doesn’t have to start on a grand scale. One question. One process. One decision that could be better supported by data. That’s often enough to show that data isn’t just an IT thing, but a shared tool.
Because data-driven work doesn’t succeed when IT handles it perfectly. It succeeds when the organization uses it.
This blog post is a contribution by Enable-U, The Data & Integration Enablers. Enable-U helps organizations securely and reliably connect systems, applications, and data so they can work in a data-driven way. For more information, visit www.enable-u.nl or stop by the Enable-U booth at Data Expo.