From optimising supply chains and supporting innovation, to addressing sector challenges and delivering public services, we have seen the value that collecting, using and sharing data can generate for businesses, the economy, society and the environment. But people and businesses want to know that they can have confidence and trust in these practices, and in the data itself.
Is your business considered trustworthy?
Our research has shown that when trust in data and organisations stewarding data increases, there is a related increase in data flow. By operating in a trustworthy way, businesses should be able to create value while limiting harms – and are more likely to be trusted by the people, organisations and ecosystems they interact with and rely upon.
Ultimately, being ‘trusted’ and ‘able to trust’ others enables businesses to operate and ecosystems to function. However, the reverse is also true. A lack or loss of trust, or the inability to build trust with others, can hinder the ability of businesses to realise the value of their offer, and can leave them exposed to the following potential perceived or actual risks:
- Legal and regulatory: Breaching data protection law, intellectual property rights, other regulatory requirements or legal contracts
- Ethical: Enabling unethical data collection or use, or of directly impacting people and communities
- Reputational: Suffering reputational damage from sharing or using data that breaches trust, or that reveals limitations in processes or analyses
- Commercial: Losing competitive advantage in the market.
Interested in what your business can do to be considered trustworthy with data?
The value of demonstrating trustworthy data practices for business
We’ve worked with many businesses and organisations looking to be both trustworthy and trusted when collecting, managing, using and sharing data. Here are some ODI client case studies demonstrating impact:
Sopra Steria
We partnered with Sopra Steria to champion digital transformation and data ethics through their financial services and public sector practices. Our unique partnership certified their staff as the first commercial professionals to be formally trained as ‘ODI Data Ethics Facilitators’.
Barclays
We worked with the Barclays team to develop a bespoke version of the ODI Data Ethics Canvas which would fit their business needs. This included embedding the 10 Barclays Group Data Principles into the tool and aligning these to specific areas of the canvas. The canvas was rolled out to the full 250+ staff in the Data and Analytics team who are responsible for overseeing data projects across Barclays UK. Barclays UK received external recognition of its work in this field, winning the ‘Best Data and AI Ethics Initiative’ category in the 2021 DataIQ Awards.
The Co-op
We partnered with the Co-op to build internal data capability on data ethics for 70 staff in their legal and data science teams, and to conduct research and develop solutions to build trust with their customers related to how they collect, share, and use data. Our initial engagement helped them win the 2019 DataIQ Award for Best Data Ethics and Privacy Programme.
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
We designed tools, guidelines, learning programmes, and built capability for 20 programme officers at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, along with 34 representatives of their network in Ethiopia and India, to manage risk and avoid harmful impacts while working with data across agricultural data ecosystems.
First steps in demonstrating trustworthy data practices
As a data leader, If you want to demonstrate trustworthy data practices, some of the first steps you will need to take are:
- Review or develop your data strategy to set out your ambitions to be trustworthy with data, and how this aligns to your business strategy
- Understand what trustworthy data practices look like for your customers and partners
- Build internal capability to ensure your teams have the skills and knowledge to manage data in trustworthy ways
- Identify where your business can create value from collecting, using and sharing data in trustworthy ways.
Develop your data strategy with help from the ODI
We help data leaders demonstrate trustworthy data practices that build their brand’s reputation.
We’ll challenge you to think strategically about how to use, collect and share data with others, informed by our research and expertise. Guided by your strategic goals and our practical experience, we’ll help you evolve your data strategy, operationalise trustworthy data practices and show leadership in your sector.
We make executing a data strategy simple, by building your internal capability on data ethics, offering advisory services to help you manage risk, and helping you implement ethical and trustworthy data practices.
And as an independent, vendor-neutral partner, we can help you map the route to impact that’s right for your industry and your priorities – guided by stakeholder and market needs, not technology solutions.
Book a call
Request a no-obligation 30-minute discovery call to get advice about building your data strategy (or building on existing practices you may already have in place).