When building and running an organization, it's critical that you trust your data. A statistic that shocked me recently was that 84% of CEOs don't trust the data they’re basing their decisions on. While it’s a common problem, it’s one that’s actually easy to fix.

There's been a lot of discussion around the proliferation of data sources in organizations, and for good reason. There are so many ways to consume data now. When I first started working we would send out paper reports. Then Excel came along and we started sending out spreadsheets. Then organizations tried to control things a bit more, so dashboards were created. While there are more new channels to receive data, none of the older ones have become obsolete.

One of the things I'm really passionate about is data and how it can be used to influence decision-making. But everyone has their own personal biases and opinions that they use to create a narrative and this can affect how they look at data. So even when the data tells us one thing, we may see something completely different.

Data in organizations has become a significant risk issue. In recent years, new risks have emerged that have led many organizations to centralize their data and seek out new ways to mitigate their data risks through tighter data governance. Regulatory change, like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the US, have focused on data privacy.

For the 8.0.2 release, the team at Yellowfin have been focussed on increasing overall performance across our products and implemented some of the most requested customer enhancements to improve the analytical user experience. As it is with every release, we’ve also included improvements to reports and charts.

I love data. I live it, I breathe it and I get excited about it. Recently, I started thinking about what creates a data culture when I read the Big Data and AI Executive Survey 2019. It said that 72% of respondents were yet to forge a data culture. While every business uses data in some form, they don’t all use it to truly understand the dynamics of their business and make strategic decisions.