Financial services organisations are leading the way when it comes to empowering frontline employees with data, according to a survey from Harvard Business Review Analytic Services and AI analytics firm ThoughtSpot.

A study of 484 businesses executives across Europe, North America and Asia Pacific found that organisations are more likely to be successful when frontline workers are both equipped with the right technology to analyse data and empowered with the right training.

The study found that there were significant discrepancies between industries when it came to empowering staff to deal effectively with data, with 20 per cent of leaders doing so coming from the financial services sector, second only to technology and telecoms organisations (27 per cent).

The lowest representation of leaders helping staff ‘data empowerment’, defined as ‘laggards’ were found in manufacturing (18 per cent), government and education (17 per cent) and healthcare and pharmaceuticals (15 per cent.)

The survey showed that ‘leaders’ in data empowerment are already reaping the benefits, with 72 per cent saying productivity has increased at least moderately; 69 per cent saying they’ve increased both customer and employee engagement or satisfaction, and 67 per cent saying they had increased the quality of their products and services.

This group is also more likely to have seen increased revenue over the past year. Nearly half of leaders have grown their revenue by more than 10 per cent over the past year, with 16 per cent having seen revenue growth of over 30 per cent.

Bill Zhang, chief data and analytics officer at insurer AIG Japan, said: “Outside some core areas such as actuarial and underwriting, a lack of data literacy is the single largest enemy we are fighting.

“As the world becomes increasingly driven by data, it’s an even bigger challenge - everyone has to understand the basics, and we have to be able to convey that in a way that is intuitive and fun.”

Sudheesh Nair, chief executive officer at ThoughtSpot, explained: "The value delivered by empowering the frontlines will only continue to grow in the next decade as these employees are able to react more quickly and customize every interaction with customers.

"The financial services firms that embrace this change will reap these benefits, while those that fail to adapt will fall by the wayside.”

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