Opinion — Why We need a new Chief in Data

Why you need a Chief Data Officer

The Life of a CDO and what they do

With the increase in data and data-driven products, the need for Chief Data Officers has increased. They share their title with the Chief Digital Officer, but it is not the same job.

Theoretical Background

The Chief Data Officer (CDO) is the term for a person who bears responsibility for the company’s data management. In contrast to the CIO, the CDO is less concerned with the technical issues of data processing, but rather with data as an asset, whose creation and use must be managed in the interests of the company. Accordingly, the CDO is responsible for the planned management of the creation, use and quality assurance of the data. Added to this are tasks relating to data security and, occasionally, data protection [1].

A new role is needed

Companies that are forward-thinking and data-driven already have a CDO. Their central task is to drive the democratization of data, analytical processes, and digital transformation throughout the company. The implementation of flexible self-service platforms for data analysis plays a particularly important role here. It is them that ensure access to data and resources and create space for employees to develop and become knowledge workers. Whether marketing, sales, security, IT or other functional areas — data-driven insights help to make better decisions in real time to successfully respond to disruptive events and accelerate the overall digital transformation of a company.

Roles and Tools you need

The role of the Chief Data Officer which serves as a driver and to steer a data strategy is the leader of the Data Lab which is characterized by disruptive and agile working and thinking. Roles in this Lab are e.g. Data Scientist/Analyst, Data Engineers and Data Product Owners.

It is also important here that a digital platform is created so that the tool for modern data analysis is available in the first place [2]. This platform should be flexible, scalable and cloud-based. This allows paradigms such as agile development to be implemented and topics and products from the areas of data, processes and apps to be made available more quickly. How to build up such platforms can be read here.

Another soft skill based tool is to use an agile methodology. I really recommend using an agile process for a faster deployment of the developed system in order to minimize risks and undesirable developments in the development process. You can find some inspirations here — for example how storytelling will support data analytics projects.

Summary

Creating the position of a CDO means that a company is moving towards becoming a data-driven operation, or at least beginning to implement digital transformation at scale. Making this work requires turning complex data concepts and technologies into actionable plans for the rest of the organization. The CDO must take the lead here and ensure that they establish the purpose of a data-driven environment. An important cornerstone is a digital data platform that enables the agile development of the data team in a modern and scalable way.

“In God we trust, all others bring data.” — W. Edwards Deming

Sources and Further Readings

[1] Wikipedia, Chief Data Officer (2018)

[2] Björn Böttcher, Dr. Carlo Velten, Data is the Product (2017)