How data is driving business success

While some organisations are starting to make data-driven decisions, there’s still a long way to go, the research reveals. Internet Photo 

In Summary

• A new report on the state of data and analytics in Middle East and Africa in 2020, explores how data leaders design business objectives, the changing role of the chief data analytics officer (CDAO) and hurdles holding back corporates.

By Faustine Ngila

Data is becoming an integral driver of the economy and our overall daily lives. In tech circles, it is regarded as the ‘modern oil’ that when well processed, fuels corporates growth in a fast-changing digital economic environment.

A new report on the state of data and analytics in Middle East and Africa (MEA) in 2020, explores how data leaders design business objectives, the changing role of the chief data analytics officer (CDAO) and hurdles holding back corporates.

The report, An Exclusive Snapshot of the Opportunities and Challenges Facing Data and Analytics Leaders Today, reveals that having someone who is responsible for maximising the value of a company’s data asset is essential for businesses operating in the digital age. It indicates that more than 70 C-Suite data leaders have been hired in the MEA region since 2012.

“Going back five years ago, data, being data-driven and especially analytics were kind of a ‘nice to have’ for companies,” says Louise de Beer, Head of BI and Data Science at South African analytics-driven estate agent Leadhome.

“If you look at reports from two years ago, innovators started playing with data as a differentiator. I think where we are now is that data is becoming a hygiene factor. If you don’t have it, what are you doing with your business?”

The number of executives working in senior data roles is a simple litmus test for assessing a region’s digital maturity. South Africa is a regional trailblazer in this respect, with the UAE in a distant second place.

The report suggests that a consensus is starting to form about where the chief data officer (CDO) sits in relation to the wider organisation. Gone are the days of the CDO reporting into the chief information officer (CIO).

Instead, 60 per cent of the CDAOs who responded to the survey answered to their company’s chief operations officer (COO), 20 per cent report to the chief risk officer (CRO) and another 20 per cent answer directly to the CEO.

Mark Nasila, Chief Analytics Officer at FNB South Africa says data leaders need a mandate that spans the whole business in order to effectively drive organisational change.

“The business needs or use cases are very unique to each business unit. What I’ve done is to follow what is called a ‘shared services’ operating model. The strategy is centrally led, but it’s executed in a decentralised way, at a business unit level,” he told Digital Business.

Evolving role
The role of a CDAO will naturally evolve with a company’s data maturity. A company’s first CDAO will initially be concerned with developing a data strategy and laying the foundations for data success.

But with this groundwork complete, their focus will shift towards enhancing the ways their organisations can extract value from its data asset. The research shows that this evolution is well underway in organisations across MEA. A whole 46 percent of data leaders say their companies are in this transitionary phase, with 42.5 percent reporting that their data teams are focused primarily on offensive initiatives.

Hartnell Ndungi, CDO at Absa Bank Kenya (formerly Barclays) explains that when people start visualising their data better, they start asking questions like, ‘What will happen in the future?’

“In South Africa and East Africa, what I’m seeing is that 90 percent of CDOs are at level one. They are focusing mostly on data management, data protection and data privacy,” Mr Ndungi reveals.

“I am also seeing a few CDO 2.0s, who are also able to talk about solutioning and coming up with dashboards and analysis to ensure that you’re able to visualise and present data better, and very few CDO 3.0s,” he adds.

The vast majority of the survey respondents said the purpose of their role is to drive business performance through advanced analytics.

According to the study, building a data science capability was the second most frequently cited ‘purpose’, tied with identifying opportunities for AI adoption.

Just 26 percent of respondents said the purpose of their role is to implement sustainable data management and governance practices.

Data leaders are clearly looking to the future when it comes to articulating the purpose of their roles. This is particularly crucial as technologies such as blockchain, data science, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality (VR) cloud computing and Internet of Things (IoT) becomes integral part of business.

But some may be ignoring or downplaying the traditional data challenges that are still present in many organisations.

“They will need to balance their advanced initiatives with more foundational investments to give their data strategies the best chances of succes,” the report says.

Some executives may initially have resisted the idea that their instincts might not be the best tool for guiding their companies to prosperity. But the Middle East and Africa’s data leaders are successfully proving their worth and combating these old-fashioned ways of thinking.