10 Reasons You Don’t Need a Data Strategy

Organizations are recruiting and appointing Chief Data Officers to develop new data driven cultures and business-driven analytics programs, but sometimes having that person can be vastly overrated, not to mention an unnecessary expense for the organization that already has a CIO, CTO and Head of BI and Analytics. Here are 10 reasons to eliminate that role and the strategic view of data they might impose on your organization.

Operational / Tactical

1) Your community of business users are satisfied with the reports and analysis that they have today, there are no current plans to put in new transactional applications.

2) You have your information security processes and infrastructure covered and you are able to anticipate new threats as they occur.

3) You’ve been able to anticipate the privacy regulations and data that you collect and store is for specific reasons, and you have been diligent in obtaining user permissions.

Operational / Strategic

4) Your systems roadmap has provisioned for data management infrastructure, in terms of storage, pre-processing, data availability, master data management, and your organization has the knowledge and skills to plan and manage the organization’s data.

5) The data pipelines to acquire, share, transfer data between departments and divisions, maintaining consistency to provide accurate and up to date information for decision making.

Transformational / Tactical

6) You are able to use consented first or zero party data to understand your customers and have a rich dialog with them at scale

7) You are able collaborate with your supply and demand chain partners, and securely share data and insights with them that provides mutual benefits

Transformational / Strategic

8) Your organization, from analysts to senior leadership recognize data as a strategic asset of the organization and is prepared to make investments in data skills and infrastructure

9) Strategic data projects are treated as Capital Expenditure and are required to compete for investment against other strategic projects such as plant and facilities

10) Data is actually driving shareholder value and is being recognized by the Board as key to the organization’s future success.