Member insight
The highlight of the meeting was the Q&A discussion with Steven Blunden, head of data, insights and OR, IAG Cargo and Kinnari Ladha, chief data officer, IAG Loyalty. Both IAG Loyalty and IAG Cargo are DataIQ members, but there is an intriguing balance between the two when it comes to data. David Reed, chief knowledge officer, DataIQ chaired the discussion and helped draw out some educational pointers for the engaged audience.
Blunden and Ladha described how it is not unusual for larger businesses to have different brands operating within it, but they frequently lack an umbrella group strategy for data. Commonly finance and operations are catered for, but data teams frequently find themselves on the fringes of strategy decisions. In contrast to this, however, group technology strategies can be invaluable by increasing speed of implementation and reducing individual division costs.
On this point, it was noted that the goals of IAG Cargo and IAG Loyalty are different, which means they rarely move at the same speed or in the same direction at the same time. This can cause issues when showcasing the data prowess of each brand to the parent organisation as it runs the risk of making the data ambitions seem like identical aspirations for each team, which is seldom the case. This can be mitigated with a comprehensive data strategy which informs and influences the decision-making of the executive committee and organisation leaders.
Finally, Ladha and Blunden dived into the power of sharing learnings, wins and frustrations with different stakeholders, team members and data peers. Attendees were also privy to the reveal of an informal Friday CDO club within IAG where sharing can take place in a safe and supporting environment.
Wider discussions
After the IAG Loyalty and IAG Cargo conversation had concluded, the representatives of different members paired up to have some one-to-one discussions about key issues that DataIQ members have raised on different occasions.
The topics examined included:
- Change and external factors
- Engaging stakeholders
- Engaging the data team
- How to champion
The main takeaways from these intimate chats were to promote a sense of solidarity between members who may be uncomfortable discussing issues, highlighting different ways in which problems can be addressed and demonstrating the data insights that exist within the DataIQ community.
Members said they ended the discussions feeling “far more comfortable with the data journey” their business is on, coming away with a “greater understanding of how to promote data to key organisation leaders” and more assured of their “ability to handle rapid change and unseen external influences.”
The next members meetup will take place on 2 June and the focus will be on the question: What does our data literacy need to look like? Click here to register to attend.