Anyone who thinks a successful chief data officer (CDO) is only measured by their ability to manage information is mistaken. While ensuring data quality is a key element of the role, the best data chiefs are increasingly going beyond numbers and engaging with their line-of-business peers to deliver digital business transformation.
Gartner's sixth annual CDO survey says as many as 93% of data chiefs believe effective communication is critical to their success. The analyst says the most important competencies for modern CDOs are influence, engagement and communication – and these are very much leadership rather than data-management skills.
"If the CDO does not exert influence across the organisation by promoting data sharing, engaging stakeholders and training the workforce to become data literate, they will likely not perform well in their role," says Gartner vice president Debra Logan.
While CDOs who work closely with business peers are 1.7 times more likely to be effective at consistently producing clear business value, Gartner says less successful CDOs are inclined to focus on technology instead of people.
That sentiment resonates with Sudaman Thoppan Mohanchandralal, chief data and analytics officer at finance firm Allianz Benelux, who tells ZDNet that the only way for CDOs to remain what he refers to as "hyper relevant" is to focus first on business objectives rather than the management of information and the implementation of analytics systems.
"Any investment should have a very strong and a serious link to a business outcome," he says. "You need to ensure that it's the dog that wags the tail and not the tail that wags the dog."
The message for CDOs is clear: your success is dependent on your ability to influence others and to help the organisation develop a digital business strategy that puts data at the heart of operational activities.
For other tech leaders – such as chief digital officers, CIOs and CTOs – this requirement to focus on engagement will sound like a familiar refrain.
Earlier this year, we suggested that successful CIOs must think business first and technology very much second, referring to Gartner research that suggested IT leaders are increasingly hired for their emotional intelligence not just their technical acumen.
Now it seems as if that focus on engagement is spreading to CDOs, too. Data chiefs might have originally been hired to make sense of the huge treasure troves of information their business holds but their long-term success is dependent on their ability to move from data management into business engagement.
Gartner says the best data leaders today go beyond managing data and work directly with business stakeholders to create insight that creates measurable value for their organisation.
Logan says data sharing – currently seen as a priority by 43% of data chiefs – can help accelerate digital business transformation. In fact, Gartner predicts organisations that promote data sharing will outperform their peers by 2023.
Finding better ways to share data has certainly been the priority for Marc Alvarez, vice president for data management and operations at media giant Thomson Reuters, who has spent the past two and a half years building a strategic master data management (MDM) programme alongside technology partner Winshuttle and its EnterWorks platform.
