Democratization of data for scalable AI results

Companies that want to make better, faster decisions are turning towards data science, data analytics, and artificial intelligence.

However, these companies are confronted with some basic truths:

1. Data Scientists are highly sought after individuals with a skill-set that comes at a premium due to limited availability.
2. While the traditional data science methodology is often complex and time consuming, not every decision requires a Data Scientist to resolve it.
3. Businesses can benefit from having data more commonly used enterprise wide if they can tap into the business and analytical skills of their employees by providing them with an easier way to access, manipulate and analyse data to achieve corporate outcomes.

Instead of employing data scientists to help inform every operational decision and using up valuable time, resources and money, a trend is emerging which involves the ‘democratization of data’ .

At its core, this transformation involves the simplification of processes and the expansion of the use of data by people that haven’t worked with data before.

This is being achieved through the convergence of two major things: Analytics Process Automation (APA) technologies and Business Process Digital Transformation.

Analytics Process Automation platforms (like VROC's no-code AI platform OPUS) allow operations teams to search for answers in the data without any coding or programming skills required. The knowledge of how to use basic database programs like MS Excel is more than adequate. These technologies, with their simple to use interfaces, result in a broad range of personnel with different skill-sets using powerful tools such as data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning to generate analytical results, often in minutes.

Business benefits from this approach, not only with the upskilling of staff and the efficient utilisation of stored data, but also with the reduction in time to achieve meaningful  business insights and improved decision making. Businesses can improve operational, marketing, sales, asset management, production decisions and more, with analytical insights at speed.

Without a transformation to the way our business processes work, we are unable to harness automated technologies (or APA) to democratize data. This expansion of the use of data  across the business, will help to steer strategies that continuously improve the quality of the data being collected, with measures around data governance to ensure better outcomes. As a whole, businesses will become more accustomed to using data in their daily operations, from administration, reporting and compliance, as well as the automation of simple processes.

VROC is working with our clients to democratize the use of data in their organisations’ operations and maintenance teams across a wide range of industries, using artificial intelligence as part of their new day-to-day routines to help monitor, manage, optimise and plan more efficiently.

One such client used our OPUS platform to manage their offshore oil and gas production platform with limited on board personnel during the COVID-19 pandemic. Operational teams changed their daily processes to rely on VROC’s predictive insights, and as a result the plant maintained its requisite level of integrity and performance, and the company experienced immediate cost savings. This was achieved without using internal data science personnel. 

Another client used no-code AI insights to identify the root cause of a potential significant leakage and safety issue at their industrial facility. The team followed the insights, despite the AI identifying the cause of the issue as being from a separate, not typically inter-related process. The client subsequently avoided the significant safety incident and compliance risk, and saved close to one million USD. When speaking about the incident the client said ‘Technically you couldn’t get this particular decision to be made as fast as that’.

Through the democratization of data and the application of analytics process automations, businesses are starting to be able to scale AI and discover true benefits.

Learn more about VROC’s solution to democratising data, request a demo today.