Canadian National Railways Data Services (CNDS) is a centralized IT organization designed to drive CN’s transition into a data-driven enterprise by aligning all core data functions toward achieving greater business value. This centralization empowers CN with a critical mass of expertise, enabling faster innovation and adoption of data-driven solutions. CNDS is committed to:

• Creating new data-driven opportunities by ensuring data is cleaner and more accessible.

• Enhancing self-service capabilities for business units through improved practices.

• Accelerating the deployment and adoption of advanced analytics and AI.

• Strengthening risk management for data breaches, compliance, and privacy.

To fulfill this vision, CNDS has established four key pillars within its data strategy. These pillars collectively support CN’s journey toward becoming a fully data-driven organization, ensuring scalable, secure, and innovative data operations across all business units.

1. Data Democratization and Literacy Strategy: Focuses on improving data quality, compliance, and security, while fostering greater trust in the organization’s data and analytics. It aims to cultivate a data-driven business culture through improved literacy and confidence in KPIs.

2. Advanced Self-Service Practices Strategy: Empowers employees with real-time data access, enhancing productivity, decision-making, and satisfaction, while reducing dependency on IT support and associated costs.

3. Realtime Data Analytics Strategy: Leverages real-time data analytics to improve decision-making, enhance data integration with governance practices, and accelerate time-to-market for data products through automation and AI integration.

4. Accelerated Data Science & AI Strategy: Promotes fast-prototyping and democratization of AI capabilities, enabling self-service business users to adopt AI solutions rapidly, leading to faster time-to-market and improved success rates for data AI initiatives.

This fireside chat session explores these data strategy pillars in depth, providing a platform for participants to review, discuss, and benchmark various approaches from across the industry.

Speakers

• Dinesh Chandrasekaran, Canadian National Railways, Data Management Leader

• Saurabh Ingale, Canadian National Railways, Group Manager, Data Governance & Quality

• Jean-Francois Ross, Canadian National Railways, Executive Director, CN Data Services