How the smartest companies around the world approach data science
Data literacy is a relatively new concept. The expression showed up in the past decade and quickly became a buzzword around all industries. By now, companies are considering it one of their top priorities, and the importance of a “data driven culture”, “all around data literacy” and the role of the emerging star position, the Chief Data Officer are being increasingly emphasised at industry meetings, conferences and in countless articles.
No one can argue with the fact that data is now a priority for businesses, regardless of their size, and the handling of data is critical to success. Spending on analytics products and big data is now projected to grow above $200 billion by next year, up from $150 billion in 2018. In order for organisations to become and stay successful, “data culture” has to be implemented, where all employees understand data, continuously learn about data and handle data in a safe and productive manner. Even at very large companies it’s no longer feasible to restrict access to data to specific departments and highly ranked individuals. Employees across entire organisations need to use common platforms to view, disseminate and report on data and share results in a matter of seconds. Data security was fairly alien a few decades ago, now it’s an essential component of business and failing to keep data safe has dire consequences.
Enter the Chief Data Officer (CDO). In this new era focused on data is projected by the end of this year, 90% of large global companies will have a CDO in place, up from 12% a mere 7 years ago. CDOs responsibilities and their measure of success can vary. Typically charged with enterprise wide governance and utilisation of information as an asset, data integration, market innovation and data monetisation they will likely also be custodians and accountable for significant compliance / regulatory led business needs. Lastly and as importantly CDOs increasingly shoulder the need to develop the data culture and data literacy. Successful CDOs will make it a key part of their mission to ensure to embed data literacy and a data driven culture in their organisations. This doesn’t mean that all that everyone needs to become a data scientist or must acquire a deep understanding of data related technologies. Even CDOs don’t need to have a PhD in data science, in fact many of them come from a business background, or are company veterans from different departments. Well established data literacy within a company means that all workers understand data, are enabled to handle data and can talk to data science, data engineering and information communication experts when required.
The giants of the technology and consulting fields, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, KPMG and their peers, are in an advantaged position with resources, budget and capacity to have CDO’s governing a small army of data experts on hand. They also often have established in-house training channels and employee development initiatives.
