VIDEO | Novartis Global Head: Success of Data transformation Lies in Adoption

(US and Canada) Ravi Prasad, Global Head, Data and AI Strategy and Operations, Novartis, speaks with Girish Bhat, Senior Vice President Marketing, Acceldata, about Novartis’ digital transformation journey and the key focus areas for driving culture change.

Prasad says that the Novartis Enterprise data journey started three years ago with the implementation of the hub and spoke model. It has a central team responsible for a set of standardization-related activities with spokes sitting in the various business and functional units. 

He reveals that the organization ran the program for about 18 months to ensure the right awareness and acceptance before transforming it into an enterprise data organization. Prasad says that Novartis, a big organization, takes time to drive change management. It is still in the early stages and has a long way to go.

Sharing advice for companies on ways to create a data-driven culture, he says that culture and mindset are critical for any transformation. 

Prasad mentions four key focus areas or foundation principles, as he describes them.

1. Always start with the business’s objectives and needs. Always understand and learn what their OKRs are.

2. Always co-create data solutions with the business. The success of data transformation lies in adoption.

3. Always have a dedicated change management and a data literacy team. It is critical to ensure that data-driven decision-making is understood and appreciated by every organization employee.

4. An absolute buy-in from the executive leadership and the board is critical. There has to be visibility at the board level to ensure that that company is going through the transformation.