From a personal perspective, winning an award provides an affirmative boost. For Anita Fernqvist, UK chief data officer at Zurich Insurance, “it made all the moments of doubt and challenge worthwhile”. Rob McKendrick, head of data at The Co-operative, echoed this when he commented that winning a DataIQ Award “ranks pretty highly” as one of his proudest career achievements to date.
Winning a DataIQ Award can also open doors. Kinnari Ladha, head of data science, analytics and BI, group marketing UK&I at TUI Group, experienced exactly this after being recognised as the Digital and Data Champion in 2019. She said that winning, “provided me with great opportunities to attend industry events globally as a keynote speaker, sharing my knowledge and personal experiences to help others achieve their business ambitions”. Receiving industry recognition can be a great vindication for all your hard work.
Reinvigorating teams
It’s not just the personal satisfaction that is important, success is all about teams coming together to overcome challenges and truly make a difference. Rob McKendrick and his team won the inaugural DataIQ Award for best data ethics initiative, leading him to comment that, “the knock-on benefits are fantastic, and it’s helped us to further develop our ethical approach to data management”. The internal recognition they received following their win has helped them continue their important work in this key area.
Zurich has won several DataIQ Awards over the years, yet it was their first award – for Transformation with Data – that Anita Fernqvist has described as “the most fundamental”. In a recent podcast, she highlighted that winning gave, “an incredible sense of collective achievement and had an uplifting impact on the team.” The win proved an inspiration to continue on the path of achievement, as Fernqvist said: “It reinvigorated the team, it reinvigorated our agenda, it ignited a renewed ambition for the team and a real sense of pride and validation in what they were doing.”
Enhancing relationships
This idea of team success is also reflected in the positive benefits for vendors in entering awards on behalf of their clients. Yes, it provides them with a detailed and valuable case study highlighting how they’re helping businesses achieve success, but it also demonstrates what it means for the client relationship which is key.
Discussing the Customer and CRM Success award they won with Pets at Home for the launch of their loyalty club, Go Inspire’s chairman, Andy Wood, and senior group marketing executive, Matt Lawrenson, commented: “We truly are partners and we all work extremely hard to get to this point consistently.” Sharing the joint success highlights the trust a client has and entering a client into an award reinforces and enhances your relationships.
Recognising data’s value across the business
Awards also demonstrate how critical data is across a business. For Daryl D’Cruz, head of data innovation – consumer and market insights at Samsung Europe, winning the DataIQ Award for Data Aggregation raised the team’s profile, demonstrating its ability to persevere, take challenges head-on, negotiate and influence in a “complex and dynamic Samsung world”. It highlighted achievements for the business and “we’ve earned the respect and space to continue to innovate, because we deliver.”
D’Cruz recognises that the work of the team “has enabled increased collaboration, transparency, business efficiencies and has ultimately driven the agenda of data literacy across the European region,” proving how winning awards can change the perceptions of data teams and the role they play across the business.
When considering entering an award, forget any notion that it’s a self-congratulatory exercise. By developing your submission, you’re defining and championing what you’ve actually managed to achieve for your business. Our judging panel is made up of top data industry leaders and gaining recognition from your peers can, on its own, make it feel worthwhile entering. But it’s so much more – winning can make a real difference to you, your team and its profile in the business, driving you all on to deliver more.
Entries close on 15th June 2020. For more information visit the awards site here.
Good luck.
