VIDEO | Best Buy, Head – Advance Analytics & Data Science: Organizational Data Strategy Should Have the Right Flexibility

(US and Canada) Ethiraj Purushothaman, Head – Advance Analytics & Data Science (interim), Best Buy, speaks with Leonard Maganza, Chief Customer Officer, Syniti, about critical principles necessary for building a successful data strategy and ways to highlight the data quality

Purushothaman urges data leaders to start with the business strategy, objectives, key decisions, and questions to build a successful data strategy. He highlights two focus areas. Align the data strategy with its users, and ensure the organizational data strategy has the right mix of control and flexibility. Focus on security and compliance because of the regulatory processes, and find new ways of using the data to solve problems.

Next, he discusses ways to get business stakeholders to recognize the data quality issue. Purushothaman explains that consumers’ expectations for personalized, relevant, and assisted experiences are growing, increasing the demand for data solutions.

He says that because AI and ML find hidden patterns in large quantities of data, it is crucial to have the right data quality. Data quality will not only impact the performance of data solutions and algorithms but can also introduce unintended biases into the system.

Additionally, he says that as more decisions are automated, there will be more opportunities for continuous optimization, and data quality will be critical here.

In conclusion, he says data quality is essential to build trust with the business stakeholders and senior leaders, without which it will be challenging to get the right level of engagement and insight consumption. This will have a higher chance of impacting the business outcome and delivering value.