Chief Data Officer is Everyone’s Job
We have been addressing foundational ways to increase leadership capacity through building value-based communication channels that establish trust, encourage collaboration and innovation among employees and engage members. A recently published study from The IBM Institute for Business Value, Connecting More – Intersecting Insights from the IBM CEO, CMO and CIO Studies, based on over 6,000 face-to-face interviews with global C-suite executives, supports these concepts and adds another significant facet. CEOs identified the top attributes to engage employees: ethics and values; a collaborative environment; purpose and mission; and ability to innovate.
Most of the CEO’s interviewed by IBM listed technology and people as their two top priorities, IBM found that technology leaders and organizations that emphasize openness with a focus on employees, tend to outperform their industry peers in revenue growth and profitability. They know that they must employ and develop good people with the right skills in order to leverage ever developing and improving technology. Technology includes social networks, mobile data and digital media, utilizing the cloud and employing the related data explosion. Emphasizing openness includes breaking down silos, empowering employees to collaborate, innovate, be creative and engage in a two-way conversation with the customer. Outperforming organizations value their employees and empower them to deliver results.
As organizations become more open, CEOs recognize the critical need for organizational values and a clear sense of purpose to guide decisions and actions; the organization’s Mission and Values Statements should be employed and are important in characterizing the organization’s culture. The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is becoming much more involved with defining and managing the internal culture and brand reputation as well communicating it externally. Most CMOs, however, recognize that substantial work is required to have employees embrace and live the corporate culture. Chief Information Officers (CIOs) can help to manage openness by applying their technological expertise.
CMOs and CIOs are aligned in their desire to enhance and improve the total customer experience by drawing on Big Data’s power. “Knowing the customer” is expanding well beyond the traditional market segment statistics and inferences that CMOs traditionally have used. Transaction records plus volumes of other available information, which has been more of the CIO’s domain, substantively augment the traditional information for the CMO.
An overwhelming majority of CMOs interviewed expect that customer analytics, social media and mobile apps will be increasingly employed. Questions arise, however, on how managing in a social environment and incorporating social feedback in a meaningful way can best drive revenue growth. This is a challenge and an opportunity for CMOs and CIOs to creatively collaborate. IBM found that outperforming organizations surpass their peers in capabilities to access and draw insights from data, and to translate insights into actions for essential input into business strategy, customer interaction and engagement.
CEO, CMO and CIO C-suite alignment is a shared obligation. CEOs can demonstrate and enable organizational openness by establishing, recognizing and rewarding collaborations across the enterprise. CMOs can jump-start efforts related the new technologies, including how data should infuse the organization and be employed by partners. CIOs can actively introduce technological tools and opportunities for more creative collaboration especially through partnering. As IBM points out: “Chief Data Officer is in everyone’s job description.”
