In order to become a data-driven organization, your data must be trustworthy, easy to understand, and accessible by everyone in your organization. A sound Data Governance strategy blends discovery, control, and automation to ensure everyone has appropriate access to business-critical data they need to make critical decisions.

Watch this webinar to learn everything you need to know to start - or restart - your data governance program.

Excited to be kicking off a video series about Data Strategy - what it is, why it's important and how companies can build one. We hear from many companies trying to get a handle on their data - not just from a technology perspective, but from a process and employee perspective as well. Approaching these challenges in a holistic way, we've found, is key to building a data-driven culture. Take two minutes to listen to what's in store for the series and check out the other videos!

Continuing the series on data strategy, this video explains what a data strategy is and why organizations need one. In our experience building a data strategy for dozens of companies at Analytics8, this is a critical piece - a foundation - of an analytics practice. An external partner is not strictly necessary to build a data strategy, having domain expertise and an independent perspective are critical. "A data strategy is a plan for how the business can leverage the asset it has in its data to progress towards its objectives." Take a look and let us know below if you know of other reasons a data strategy is valuable or if you have questions about its value.

So what is a data strategy? What are the different aspects that are included in a data strategy? In this short video, Dave Williams provides an overview of what Analytics8 has determined to be the nine core components of a data strategy - starting with the strategic objectives of the business, multiple layers of the technical architecture and the roadmap that will serve as the plan for building out the desired end-state data culture. Take a look and let us know if you have questions about any of the core components of a data strategy.

Orienting data, analytics and data science initiatives towards accomplishing the strategic objectives of the business is where work on building a data strategy begins. Here's an explanation of why that's where we, at Analytics8, engage with companies looking to do more with their data. "A data strategy should always be oriented towards the goals and objectives of the business."