October's Insights for Data Leaders

Welcome to the October CDO Newsletter!

This month's newsletter features expert interviews with Sangeetha Chandru and Bhushan Kokate on why retail brands should leverage generative AI, and how to prioritise the right data initiatives to achieve maximum business value. We’ve also compiled some of the latest industry news to keep you up to date with all the goings on in the world of data.

Leveraging Generative AI in Retail to Adapt to Evolving Customer Behaviours

In today’s crowded retail landscape, leveraging generative AI effectively can help retailers differentiate themselves from competitors by enabling them to personalise and enhance customer journeys.

At the recent CDO Retail Exchange, we spoke to Sangeetha Chandru from EXL about how data and generative AI are transforming the retail experience for customers and retailers alike. Some key takeaways from the interview were:

• Generative AI is democratising data, helping retailers to access data and act on data to create personalised experiences for customers.
• Retailers possess huge amounts of first-party data. Leveraging this data will help brands create messaging, products and services that truly resonate with the customer.
• If your organisation has weak data foundations, scaling AI solutions will be incredibly difficult.

See the full video below!

Prioritising Data Initiatives for Maximum Business Value: A Guide for CDOs

From attracting and retaining top talent, to securing buy-in and investment for data initiatives, data leaders today are navigating multiple challenges and competing priorities. Coupled with the huge array of technology solutions on the market, it can be hard for today’s data leaders to know where to start and which data initiatives to prioritise.

Ahead of next month’s CDO BFSI Exchange, we were fortunate enough to sit down with one of our esteemed speakers Bhushan Kokate – Data, Analytics and AI Lead (Chief Architect) at global insurance company MS Amlin – to discuss how data leaders can strategically choose which data initiatives to prioritise to achieve maximum business value. Read some key takeaways from the interview below: ?

5 questions to ask to help choose which data initiatives to prioritise on a limited budget:

1. Business strategy and priority – Is the data initiative aligned to the organisation’s top priorities and key business requirements?
2. Regulatory alignment – Is the data initiative a ‘MUST’ to deliver regulatory compliance and reduce operational and data risk?
3. Reduce cost and maximise benefits – Will the data initiative reduce operational and run costs and maximise business benefit?
4. Cross-organisational capability – Will the data initiative deliver a foundational data capability or a data infrastructure which can be leveraged and benefit multiple initiatives across the business?
5. Look for the small wins – Will the data initiative deliver small wins quickly at a lower cost and maximise business benefit?

Navigating the people side of data transformation

CDOs face multiple challenges when planning and implementing data transformation initiatives that go beyond the technology itself. These challenges include:

• The absence of right skills and resources to deliver new data initiatives.
• Change management and improving enterprise-wide data culture and literacy (low maturity).
• An increasing gap between the CDO (data) and CIO (IT function).
• Demonstrating and delivering value and ROI for data initiatives.

Below is some of Bhushan’s practical advice to data leaders for overcoming these challenges:

1. Don’t boil the ocean - focus on few but strategic initiatives that can deliver visible business benefit.
2. Enable a data culture shift – work towards defining, managing and leveraging data products.
3. Build a strong relationship with the CIO/CTO to reduce the data and IT divide.
4. Work with the CFO/finance function to demonstrate and socialise value - get clarity on short-term and long-term business priorities.

Access the full interview with Bhushan Kokate here.

Data News in Brief

Resistance to Change Identified as Biggest Barrier to Data Culture in Culture of Data Report by Orbition Group

Orbition Group’s newly published Culture of Data Report identified resistance to change as the most significant obstacle preventing data leaders from promoting a data-driven culture within their organisation. Other barriers identified in the report include resource constraints, lack of data skills and awareness, and organisational culture and structure.

Produced following detailed conversations with 50 UK-based data and analytics leaders, further insights included:

• 68% of interviewees said their organisation lacks somebody dedicated to data culture.
• 66% of data professionals interviewed would rate their organisation’s level of data literacy at between 5 and 7 out of 10.
• Financial and business performance metrics and operational efficiency and process improvement metrics were identified as the most common ways to assess the impact of data-driven decision making within an organisation.

Data Regulator to Investigate Ryanair’s Use of Facial Recognition Technology

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) has launched an EU-wide investigation into Ryanair’s use of facial recognition technology to verify the identity of customers booking flights through third-party websites. In a statement, the airline said that the verification process “protects customers from those few remaining non-approved online travel agents, who provide fake customer contact and payment details to cover up the fact that they are overcharging and scamming consumers.” The investigation will centre around whether this biometric verification process on third-party sites is compliant with Europe’s GDPR laws.

The Data Protection Commission’s investigation comes a month after Meta was fined €91 million by the DPC for unknowingly storing some social media users' passwords on its internal systems without encryption, constituting four breaches of the GDPR. Meta notified the DPC of the breach in April 2019.?

Google Makes Recommendations to UK Government to Get Ahead in AI Race

With the UK’s new Labour government recently shelving ￡1.3 billion worth of funding for AI and technology projects, a recent report from Google has made a series of suggestions to prevent the UK from falling behind in the AI race.

Key recommendations from Google’s Unlocking the UK’s AI Potential report include:

• Investing in fundamental infrastructure such as data centres.
• Creating a National Research Cloud to enable collaboration.
• Reforming the legal framework for text and data mining (TDM) to allow for the use of copyrighted material to train AI models.
• Creating a National Skills Service to offer lifelong learning for UK employers and workers.

Book Recommendation of the Month - Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace) by Chade-Meng Tan

In recognition of World Mental Health Day, this month’s book recommendation is Search Inside Yourself, written by former Google engineer and personal growth pioneer Chade-Meng Tan. Based on the mindfulness and emotional intelligence course he developed for employees at Google and beyond, this book teaches readers how to use mindfulness techniques to improve health, happiness, livelihood and productivity.

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Have a story to tell? If you’re interested in contributing to a future newsletter, please contact editor Emma Pappenheim at [email protected]

View upcoming CDO Exchanges

CDO BFSI Exchange – 11-12 November 2024 | Hilton Syon Park, London

CDO Healthcare Exchange – 11-12 February 2025 | Le Méridien Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA

CDO UK Exchange – 19-20 March 2025| Hilton Syon Park, London

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