IBM, Global CDO, Executive Director: Data-Driven Businesses Make Happy Customers

(US and Canada) Carol Kim, Executive Director, Global Chief Data Office, IBM, speaks with Derek Strauss, Chairman, Gavroshe about what it means to be data-driven, organizational measures to become completely data-driven, the importance of data literacy, and challenges organizations face in their data journey.

Kim begins the discussion by stating that without data, we are just people with opinions. She adds that when a company approaches data-driven culture, it starts with making strategic decisions using data analysis and interpretations rather than just intuition and observation.

She then states that while companies widely disperse data across platforms and countries, they keep it siloed. Hence the data remains inaccessible and unanalyzed resulting in missed growth opportunities and regulatory exposure.

Therefore the upside of being a data-driven organization is that it helps to predict future occurrences and staying ahead of time by understanding customers' needs. Thus, Kim believes that data-driven businesses know how to make their customers happy. Data helps in identifying unhappy customers as well, which remedies the situation before worsening.

She firmly believes that the right data should be used for the right purpose. Data is valuable when its definition and context are clearly understood, she adds.

In its journey to become data-driven, the organization requires to have a cultural shift in mindset, states Kim. She maintains that it is easier to demonstrate how to incorporate data into decision-making processes, but it is difficult to make it a regular requirement.

To create and maintain a data-driven culture, organizations need to start implementation from the top. She urges to have managers and leaders to prioritize data in decision-making and lead by example. Then, she suggests quantifying uncertainty. As reaching absolute certainty is impossible in data, the teams need to be explicit and quantitative about the levels of data uncertainty, insists Kim.

She asserts that a solution can be as good as the data being fed. Feeding the AI with inaccurate data will lead to flawed results, questioning the initiative, integrity, and reliability. It is critical to explain the benefits of data incorporation to the employees, says Kim. The company’s progress in its data journey is proven when it can connect the right people with the right data at the right time.

In this context, Kim stresses how crucial data literacy is to a team’s success. Referring to her office, she states that they have been catalysts and evangelists for data literacy and democratization.

To ensure complete data literacy, it is fundamental to channel people towards data. They require to read, work, analyze and argue with data, says Kim. She supports the fail fast, but learn through the failure mentality.

She further states that unifying the disparate data sources under one platform for better understanding and utilization of data remains a challenge. IBM, says Kim, addresses the issue with the data fabric approach to simplify data access across the organization. 

It helps connect siloed data without moving it, thus improving data governance and privacy. It also provides multi-cloud data integration and answers the business need for trustworthy AI and ML, concludes Kim.