Build or partner? A strategic guide to doing data literacy right

It’s not news to say that helping employees become data literate or fluent is no longer a “nice to have” but a core business capability. Those who are doing it right, are setting themselves up for immeasurable competitive advantage.

But there’s a critical decision that many Chief Data & Analytics Officers and business leaders wrestle with: “Should I build our data literacy programme internally or partner with a specialist?”

This guide explores the pros and cons of each approach, through a strategic lens, to help you make the smartest decisions for your business.

Why is data literacy a strategic imperative?

Data literacy is the ability to read, analyse, and communicate with data effectively. When embedded into every department as a baseline, it fuels faster decision-making, better risk management, and greater innovation.

According to industry studies, companies with high data literacy are:

• 5x more likely to make decisions faster than their competitors
• 3x more likely to see major operational improvements
• 2x more likely to achieve above-average revenue growth

So the case for data literacy is clear. The real challenge? How to do it right.

The common pitfalls of an internal-only approach

Many organisations start by trying to tackle data literacy internally. It seems logical: use existing talent, control the narrative, and save budget. But here’s where most internal-only efforts stall.

1. Limited resources

Typically, just 1–2 internal champions are expected to support thousands of employees. It’s an uphill battle. They end up wearing too many hats, aren’t able to get every part of the process right and are put in an incredibly tough position to navigate stakeholders, content, communication and measuring the impact of the programme. Hiring a data literacy manager and hoping for the best will leave the scale and pace of impact with a lot to be desired.

2. Inconsistent experiences

Without a unified structure or strategy, learning is fragmented, engagement drops, and impact is hard to track. The amount of time it takes to build content, customise it to various cohorts and keep it up to date as requirements change is immense. When education is treated as a one-off, or set-and-forget, it won’t create the cultural change that’s required to truly become data-driven. Plus, having a small team manage thousands of learners is overwhelming. The programme will never reach its potential if there’s not the time and resources to speak with learners who aren’t engaged, capture individual use cases and follow up on how learning is being embedded.

3. Skills mismatch

Technical experts are rarely trained educators. We often see how data teams struggle to connect with business objectives and develop a curriculum that creates a shared language. Educational expertise is required to provide a captivating and engaging experience throughout. That’s why asking them to build and deliver effective learning often leads to low engagement and poor outcomes.

4. Slow time-to-value

By the time internally built programmes launch, business needs may have evolved, or the window of opportunity may have closed. In the age of GenAI, there’s no time to spend months on developing a programme. It’s impossible to hit the ground running when the task list to even get started is long. With internal build, there’s always a pay-off:

• Hire a large team at great cost to build a programme, and deliver faster
• Leverage internal resources, but struggle with timelines, feedback loops and measuring impact

The ecosystem approach: strategic partnership as a force multiplier

Forward-thinking leaders are moving away from the internal versus external binary. They’re thinking in an ecosystem way, blending their internal needs with external expertise that will help them scale their data literacy faster and more sustainably.

This approach turns a “training programme” into a strategic capability.

What does a partner-enabled ecosystem look like?

1. Change Management first

• Strategic internal comms
• Executive alignment
• Cultural transformation expertise

1. Custom learning design

• Persona-specific curriculum
• Applied learning experiences
• Tailored content mapped to business goals

1. Continuous evolution

• Regular content updates
• Agile learning models
• Performance analytics
• Building of learner communities and feedback loops

When a strategic partnership makes sense

You might benefit from a partner-led ecosystem approach if:

• You're struggling to scale learning consistently
• You’re relying on a few champions to carry the load
• Your teams need tailored, capability-relevant content
• You're expected to demonstrate ROI quickly
• You’re rolling out GenAI, BI tools, or data governance initiatives

What we say when we hear these challenges

“We’ve already got a training programme.”

Great, but is it consistent? Is it loved? Is it strategic? Most internal programmes start strong but lose momentum without external support to sustain them. Or require additional hires to scale once the pilot has proven successful.

“We can’t justify the budget.”

That’s why we created our ROI framework that helps demonstrate the value, from risk management to time saved and innovation to stakeholders. If you need support getting buy-in, we can do the heavy lifting. Because we’re completely confident that any investment in our programmes will affect productivity, decision quality, tech adoption, and even profit margins. The ROI is real and measurable.

“Our teams aren’t engaging.”

That’s a red flag. Engagement issues usually point to a deeper need: strategic change management. That’s where external partners shine. We’ve built an end-to-end way of working ensuring people are won over before they ever set foot in a virtual class. It’s not by accident that our attendance rates outperform industry standards, and we've got an excellent support team that works diligently to understand where learners are getting stuck and why. And because our education is so heavily tailored to your needs, you escape the typical pitfall of having generic content which doesn’t resonate. Because that’s a key reason for low engagement.

Data literacy is a journey, don’t walk it alone

Org-wide data literacy is not solved overnight, nor is it a tickbox exercise. It’s a collective effort to evolve the capabilities, confidence and mindset of thousands of people who are all at different levels of their journey. It requires a complex combination of vision, structure, expertise and ongoing momentum.

Luckily, you can avoid the uncertainty of a brand new data literacy initiative by selecting a partner who can give you all the right tools from day one. And help avoid overwhelming your teams. Because all we do is live and breathe data literacy, we understand deeply what works and what doesn’t.

So even if you’ve got a good programme going, it’s always worth a chat to see how your current landscape can be refined. We love working with customers who get the value of a data-literate workforce, and who want to become a best-in-class data-driven organisation.

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