The InfoBrief “Chief Data Officers: The New Business Leaders” from IDC, commissioned by Informatica, was launched at the 14th annual MIT Chief Data Officer and Information Quality (CDOIQ) Symposium, and found that aspects of the cloud that CDOs have found challenging include:
- Data ingestion, quality and governance within cloud data warehouses and data lakes;
- Mapping, transforming and cleansing master data during application modernisation (SaaS);
- Ensuring appropriate privacy protection for data in motion and at rest across multi-cloud environments.
In addition, 88% of CDOs have struggled with managing metadata, with challenging aspects including data discovery, mapping business glossary terms to technical metadata, and mapping data lineage, process flow and proliferation.
Why metadata is crucial in implementing a solid data strategy
Also, driving business results using data has proven a challenge for 50% of CDOs, in part due to a lack of data literacy, juggling self-service data access and compliance, and problems with collaboration on common business definitions for critical master data elements.
This finding comes despite 80% stating that top key performance indicators (KPIs) are linked to business goals, such as operational efficiency, customer satisfaction, data privacy, innovation and revenue.
When it comes to collaborating with other decision-makers and staff, 59% of CDOs said they report to a business leader, with reporting to the CEO being the most frequently cited organisational hierarchy. Additionally, 71% have four or fewer data stewards, despite broad responsibility and diverse collaboration requirements.
“With the amount of data worldwide increasing exponentially, the role of the CDO is becoming critical as one of the cornerstones of digital transformation,” said Stewart Bond, director of data integration and intelligence software research at IDC. “While 70% of organisations have articulated the need to be more data-driven, most still aren’t getting the full value out of their data.
“Our research uncovered that this is due, in part, to misalignment between challenges and priorities created by the CDO’s evolving, broader responsibilities.”
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Amit Walia, CEO of Informatica, commented: “In the Data 4.0 era, where companies are accelerating investments in AI and machine learning, the digital economy requires a new generation of data workers and leaders.
“The new, post-pandemic business conditions also taught us that more workers need to understand data and be able to access and use it broadly and consistently. Today, more than ever before, data strategy must be a C-suite priority, and the CDO should report to the highest levels of business leadership.”
Sri Mishra, chief data and technology officer at JDRF, a type 1 diabetes research organisation, added: “Reporting into the CEO is critical to my success as CDO. It’s also imperative that I map our data and analytics strategy to organisational processes and goals, in order to demonstrate the link to mission outcomes.
“By deploying a cloud first, cloud native data and technology platform, we’re enabling more data-driven decisions that keep us focused on fundraising, research and advocacy efforts.”
The research from IDC and Informatica surveyed over 1,200 members of the office of the CDO, across 10 countries, including the UK, US, France, Germany, India, Japan and Australia.
