Evolution of CDOs

As artificial intelligence gains momentum, how will the role of the CDxO – i.e., Chief Data Officer (CDO), Chief Data and Analytics Officer (CDAO), Chief Data and AI Officer (CDAIO) - evolve given that less than a quarter of data management initiatives succeed in establishing an appropriate data culture?

Key Factors

CDxOs who overemphasize data management infrastructure and neglect the business purpose of the solutions yield an unenviable result: a highly scalable solution that is irrelevant to business leaders. There are few better ways to erode trust than this.

These factors will continue to drive data management initiatives:

1. Data management activities that are not rooted in business outcomes are prone to failure
2. Investment in data management measured against the impact on the business provides better ROI
3. The monolithic one-data-one-interpretation paradigm is out the door in favor of the train-learn-predict context of AI algorithms

In short, CDxOs who succeed at understanding and responding effectively to the needs of the business deliver sustainable solutions and desired returns.

Think Differently

At Deloitte, our data management teams understand the seismic force that AI is about to unleash on preparing the next generation of students, curriculum development and learning experience, workforce management, balancing the impacts of falling enrollment, and the escalating costs of recruitment and retention.

When our higher ed CDxOs are ready to invest in the evolution of their data management context, we ask essential questions and deliver appropriate frameworks, collaterals and benchmarks to render success: Why are you doing this?? What are your strategic objectives and how do you expect data to assist you with meeting these objectives? How do you expect AI to impact your mission??Why are you not able to gain the insights you need in your current context? How will you measure the impact of your data management initiatives on business outcomes?

Only when there is a shared understanding for better use of data can a new culture that values data begin to emerge.

Bringing data into one place with the ability to process insights at light speed does not guarantee success.?Meaningfully integrating data and leveraging it to add value to the executive’s ability to plan and execute sets you on a better path. Success lies in getting everyone working off the same page but in many different ways and about incorporating AI into the design-think loop at the right time.

If you have not already done so, it is time to throw the monolithic one-data-one-interpretation concept out of the window. If you ask executives for their definition of customer, constituent, student, person, FTE, or customer satisfaction, be prepared to address multiple perspectives on each.

It is the CDxO’s responsibility to set the right tone on these consequential topics in order to create a culture where data serves the organization in innovative ways and business leaders learn to trust the insights offered to them.

Prepare to Evolve

Prepare for the future with an eye on what the business needs right now.?

Keep business outcomes front-and-center and move appropriately toward policies and structures that promote multi-purpose use of high-quality data, toward rapid integration of disconnected data to respond to complex questions about business outcomes, toward distributed management of useful data, and toward providing data to emerging AI models. Scalable infrastructure, adoption of market-leading tools, and powerful visualizations will then fall into the right place in the right way.

If you are a CDO, CDAO or CDAIO are you ready to evolve into a seasoned orchestrator crossed with part-time evangelist and full-time business leader? Because that is what it will take for you to move the needle higher on establishing an effective data culture as AI adoption increases.

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