Chief Data Officers: The Opportunity for Greater Data Use

In my recent blog post, I wrote about the priorities and challenges of chief data officers (CDOs) in the financial services industry, as reported in IDC’s state of the chief data officer (CDO) survey commissioned by Informatica^.[1] In this blog, I will look at the opportunity for greater use of the data collected by organizations. For those who have not yet read the report, IDC found that less than half of organizations analyze more than 50% of their data.

This finding was consistent across region, company size, industry, and CDO tenure. The only exceptions were North America and the financial services industry, where 59% of both groups reported analyzing more than half of their data. Let’s look at some of the other findings from the survey that play a factor.

Driving Greater Use of Data

Many organizations don’t know what data they have. Thirty-eight percent reported that discovering where data resides was a significant challenge, yet two thirds are not using data cataloging solutions. Creating a centralized repository of what data assets exists is therefore an opportunity to drive greater use of data. And it’s not just internal data that you need to think about—as IDC found, 52% of data originates in external sources.

With so much data coming from so many sources, in batch and real-time, it’s important to look for a solution that can automate data cataloging tasks. To learn about five key AI techniques for automating data cataloging and how three companies are using them, see Informatica’s AI-Powered Data Discovery eBook.

In addition to enabling broader access, a data catalog also helps reduce costs. In multiple conversations with CDOs this year, a common challenge involved different parts of the business purchasing the same data from external sources with different contract terms. The CDOs were able to generate significant savings by consolidating purchasing and rationalizing contract pricing with data providers.

Increasing Efficiency by Adding Context to Data

Many organizations are also challenged to provide context for data in the catalog. Thirty-nine percent reported being significantly challenged by the need to collaborate on common business definitions; mapping business definitions to technical metadata; and mapping policies to data elements. Data governance capabilities are an opportunity to provide the needed context to drive greater use of the data for analytical and operational processes.

Better context also helps increase productivity and efficiency. For example, standardized core definitions across master data domains, along with lineage and process flow mapping, can help organizations better orchestrate the exchange of data between on-premises and cloud applications that are part of business processes. Informatica helped Union Bank of the Philippines reduce loan approval times from four weeks to three minutes by enabling digital services through mobile devices. Fifty-four percent of IDC survey respondents are prioritizing automation and optimization of customer-facing processes.

Providing Self-Service Access to Trusted Data

Ensuring trust in the data is another opportunity to drive greater use across the organization. And it is not just trust in the quality of the data but also trust in the appropriate use of the data. What are the policies regarding access, use, and sharing? Who do I talk to if I’m unclear on policies? Enabling self-service data while maintaining compliance was reported as a significant challenge by 34% of IDC survey respondents. As an example of how to overcome that challenge, Informatica helped L. A. Care use data to manage growth while making sure they remain in full compliance with HIPAA and other industry regulations.

Informatica Axon Data Marketplace enables compliant self-service by curating and publishing data assets with full transparency into the privacy and protection context, so people trust that they are using data compliantly. People shop for data assets either by browsing by categories or searching based on criteria like glossary term, domain, quality, and consent attributes. The marketplace can also enforce access controls and the execution of privacy policies such as by applying masking as part of the data-provisioning process to ensure compliance.

Next Steps

I would love to hear your thoughts on the opportunity to get more use from the data collected by organizations. How much of your data do you use? What best practices can you share with your peers on data cataloging, context, and compliant self-service? Do you want to see how you compare to your peers? Take the IDC Benchmark North America, EMEA or APJ to get a personalized assessment that compares your responses to those of peer organizations around the world.

^{[1] IDC InfoBrief, Chief Data Officers: The New Business Leaders, doc #US46695720, August 2020}