Why bother?
It is common to be asked by those who do not work in data “Why should data leaders put in the effort and time it takes to properly align the data and business strategies?” The first step is to explain the issues that can commonly arise if they are not aligned:
- Poor decision-making across multiple organisation-wide teams
- Missed monetary targets
- Increased costs
- Poor forecasting capabilities
- Weakened marketing projects
The data strategy needs to be shown as integral to the foundations of the business objectives. Anything built on weak foundations will suffer from the get-go. This can be further developed through the evolution of a strong data culture, improved data literacy capabilities and support from business leaders across the organisation.
Outline the scope
The role of CDO is growing in popularity and more businesses are investing in the development of a data team. This means that in businesses that are either small or new on their data journey, the CDO will often have responsibilities that overlap or are comparable to other senior members, such as the CTO or CIO. To ensure that the purpose of data is understood, the scope of work needs to be clearly outlined and the purpose of the CDO is clearly differentiated from other senior leadership positions. A CDO should have standard responsibilities that focus on areas such as data governance, compliance, cultural transformation and highlighting problems that can be solved by data.
As each organisation has its own unique set of priorities and capabilities, it is natural that there will be overlap between the CDO and other positions, but it is imperative that CDOs are able to distinguish their roles to the wider organisation as early as possible. One way to achieve this is to build support and trust with people such as the CEO and board members so that any future plans involving the CDO can clearly be seen.
Getting started
When it comes to starting to align the two objectives, the simplest starting point is to examine, scrutinise and break down the existing business objectives. If they do not exist or are not clear, then this is where you need to start. Work with the business leaders and stakeholders to ensure there is a clear vision and agreed upon objectives that are feasible.
After the business objectives have been agreed and accepted across the organisation, the CDO can become working closely with department leaders to better understand the challenges being faced. This will also help improve the standing of the data office and the weighting given to data value. When the challenges are understood, the CDO can begin working on technology infrastructures designed to solve these specific challenges. It will take collaboration and trust between different teams to make this work, and it is not a quick journey, but it will show results early.
The CDO needs to be able to simply and clearly explain how and why certain solutions are required for a specific team. This means being able to utilise storytelling to get the information across to people with varying degrees of data literacy. Once this has been achieved, the clarity gained by the different teams will be able to hone a focused strategy that utilises the data required for a specific goal. This will further develop the data culture by highlighting the use of relevant data rather than wasting resources.
The major highlight from this starting point is the development of strong working relationships between the data team and the rest of the business. DataIQ members have often stated that other teams do not understand the role of the data team or consider them an unknown enigma that remains in the shadows. By creating strong working relationships early on, it makes future projects and data developments much easier to implement and explain.
Building momentum
What does the business want to look like in six months? Or perhaps five years? These are the long-term projects that data is essential for and having the data and business strategies aligned is a sure-fire way for rapid success. The CDO needs to place themselves in a position where they can clearly explain to different teams – operations, finance, sales – how data can help them achieve their goals and the business goals with minimal disruption.
One of the biggest selling points for a data team is that they can identify new opportunities and capabilities that have been missed. The data team needs to remain agile and nimble to be able to pounce on these opportunities when they arise. Business landscapes can change in an instant (just look at Covid-19 for example) and the needs or demands of customers can also change drastically. By having strongly aligned business and data objectives, businesses will be able to grow exponentially while maintaining high customer retention, quality and satisfaction.
The transformative power of data can only be fully realised if there is a strong data team with clearly defined roles for the CDO in a structure that is aligned with wider organisational objectives. Data-driven businesses require advanced analytics, machine learning, AI and a network of tools to be able to achieve their potentials – none of this can be realised without a CDO and clear scopes of work.
