The is no better measure of the growing prominence of the Chief Data Officer role than the emergence of business conferences dedicated to discussing its impact. At the 2015 CDO Forum in Melbourne, Katrina Read, Analytics Client Architect Leader for IBM Asia Pacific presented a session entitled: Chief Data Officer - The Next Corporate Rock Star. Intrigued by the possible conjunction of spandex, extended guitar solos and data analytics, IDM asked Katrina to expand on her thesis.

IDM: The Wikipedia definition tells us the CDO is “responsible for enterprise-wide governance and utilization of information as an asset via data processing, analysis, data mining, information trading and other means.”  What your definition is and where you see the role?

KR: The interesting thing about the role of the chief data officer is that every organisation is defining it differently. Often it’s defined based on the organisation’s current level of maturity when it comes to data analytics and where they have their biggest challenges or opportunities.  As an  example, some organisations define it more as an IT focused role and other organisations go to the other extreme where it’s almost hand-in-hand with line of business.  From what we’ve seen, certainly working with organisations around the world, the chief data officers that get the biggest impact within an organisation are actually the ones that sit between IT and line of business - the ones that bring together the knowledge and the understanding of the data and technology that are out in the marketplace today, linking it back to the business vision.  The chief data officer of today aligns IT to the corporate strategy and really focuses on business outcomes. Where we do see chief data officers that fall into this particular category, we see a significant impact of better use of analytics across the whole organisation. 

IDM: The role has been described as "a person in charge of data policies and procedures who can take on data monetisation efforts." Isn’t that just a CIO with a business hat on?

KR: The role is much broader than IT simply because it’s not just about keeping things up and running; it’s really about understanding how you can turn data into a strategic asset.  Data can be a source of competitive advantage and the only way you’re going to achieve that is if you have someone that represents the value that data can bring so that it’s part of each and every business decision.  When a business needs to make strategic decisions about how to increase revenue, maximise resources, or increase productivity, having an expert that can come to the table with valuable insight drawn from company information will have a positive impact on those decisions. These types of decisions are grounded in fact and insight.

The chief data officer role can also be considered as an evangelist role. This person will often have a comprehensive view across the whole business and is someone that understands what the business is trying to achieve, making sure that data is being managed and governed and secured in a way that can deliver on the vision.

IDM: That sort person is going to be popular, but do you really think that they will be as popular as rock stars?

KR: A chief data officer who focuses on successfully bridging the gap between data technology and business strategy and does it well can have a significant impact on the business. This means they can achieve cult status and a bit of a following – they are the new corporate rock star.  Historically, technology has often seen as a cost.  The chief data officer is really challenging this perception and showing how you can get return on investment. They are helping businesses understand that when you leverage data and insight correctly you can have a significant impact. 

IDM: Gartner came out with a pretty confident prediction that 25 percent of all large global organisations will have appointed a CDO by 2015.  Has this happened?

KR: The uptake is certainly underway. Based on our experience, we know that the role of the chief data officer comes under different titles - whether its head of data and analytics or head of strategy and analytics.  This role of a data leader or an evangelist around the data analytic space does vary a little bit and it doesn’t always come with the official title. 

IDM: A quick LinkedIn search comes up with only 12 in Australia and three in New Zealand.  Do you think that’s because we’re lagging behind or because they’ve got different names?

KR: This is still a new area for the Australian market, as they are often not necessarily carrying the title and sitting at the C-Suite.  But we are seeing more data analytics leaders and Heads of strategy and analytics within Australian businesses.  They are currently flying under the radar - possibly reporting into marketing or into a line of business – but they are there. We know that Australian organisations are starting to recognise and value the expertise needed within the business to provide a comprehensive view of data.

Katrina Read, Analytics Client Architect Leader for IBM Asia Pacific

IDM: What are the skills and capabilities and experiences you think a CDO should have?

KR: Every organisation and industry is uniquely different, meaning each chief data office role is uniquely different.  People in these types of roles understand the data and how to code, as well as having knowledge of the business and how insight is applied.  They make data a priority and a strategic asset for the business, rather than it just being an IT issue. This skill set combination is currently really hard to find. Companies like IBM collaborating with a number of universities including University of Melbourne and Deakin University to help build those skills, which is a significant skills gap in the industry.  The reality of business today means huge amounts of data are being generated across complex systems, where there are multiple touch points and platforms that hold all of the data. The challenge for the chief data officer is to draw out the insight from this information across these systems and bring it to business users, in a way that they know where to get access to the information and what they can get access to. It’s all about making data a priority, developing the skills within your organisation to exploit that opportunity and freeing the data to unlock its potential to support business decisions.

IDM: There are many organisations that are dealing with lots of data but many see it as a cost rather than seeing themselves as opportunity to drive themselves forward based on utilising that data.  Does it require a whole philosophical change to see an organisation able to utilise this new role?

KR: Tackling data used to be a time consuming process that involved completing comprehensive requirement lists, designing a data warehouse and implementing the system – sometimes this process would take between 18-24 months. These days we recommend to our clients to start off with the business outcome they want to achieve, then build a strategic data roadmap around that use case, picking off the top two projects to complete in a six to 12 week timeframe. These agile, pilot programs will ensure short time to value providing a quicker return on investment and ensuring the business is benefitting from the beginning.

IDM: Many of the challenges you highlight sound like the typical problems tackled by initiatives in master data management and data warehousing.  What is different today and how would a CDO approach these problems?

KR: I don’t think the issues are necessarily different, I think they’ve just evolved along with the evolution in the way that we create and generate data.  We are dealing with more unstructured data, which includes social media, but also includes things like call centre records or maintenance logs.  Organisations have had a lot of unstructured data in their businesses for years – they may have struggled to understand and analyse it. It’s really understanding how we can tap into the insight in unstructured data so that we’re making better decisions based on a complete picture; a complete understanding. The challenge in today’s business environment is we’re not just looking at how we report on numbers or how the operations team works, we’re actually trying to predict and look into the future as to what might happen. If you want to compete in an open market you really need to have a better understanding of the customer, of where the business is headed and of what demand is going to be coming down the track. It’s no longer enough to understand your business today. Successful businesses use data to map out the future of their organisation.

IDM: Does the CDO role encompass issues of managing and analysing unstructured data, which traditionally has come under the province of people worried about enterprise regularity and governance issues.?

KR: There’s kind of two parts to it when it comes to unstructured data.  One of them is definitely around regulatory and often organisations will have like a chief risk officer,

The chief data officer’s role isn’t restricted to a specific type of data. Regulatory compliance is a part of that but not the whole story.  It’s about understanding how one can leverage information to derive insight and using that information to make decisions - whether that information is stored in a traditional database or a flat file on a file server. 

IDM: Couldn't you just replace the CDO job title with big data officer, or BDO? 

KR: The real value that information presents to a business is actually in the analytics and the insight, not just the data. Understanding how to leverage technologies that can support, manage, govern and secure big data is absolutely critical to that.  Its two sides of the coin. Managing, governing, maintaining and securing data in a cost efficient manner is critical. On the other hand, if you’re not deriving insight from the data and then putting those insights in the hands of business users, then the value and impact on business decisions is lost. The ultimate goal for this role within an organisation is to drive better business outcomes and no matter what title this role has, this will always be the focus.