VIDEO | USAA Head of Retail Banking Data & Analytics: Need Data Analytics Acumen Outside Data Teams for Self-service

(US and Canada) Patrick Issa-Abbas, USAA Head of Retail Banking Data & Analytics, speaks with Ravi Shankar, Denodo Senior VP and Chief Marketing Officer, about enabling self-service analytics, and establishing data governance, processes, and policies.

Speaking on ways to support self-service analytics for business users within an organization,  Issa-Abbas breaks it down into a couple of dimensions:

• The first is the technical dimension that requires abstracting the technical aspects of data as much as possible to provide a fast and easy way to access the required information.

• The second is increasing the data and analytic acumen outside of the data analytics teams within the business and operations teams to build more informed users and better equipped self-service agents.

When asked about establishing data governance, processes, and policies, Issa-Abbas backtracks to 2015 when he joined USAA and took steps to advance information governance and stewardship. This required training and deploying stewards across the organization, first in the analytics layers and then pushing it further into the operational layers as well.

This training and deployment developed deep domain knowledge throughout the flow of data. It also helped in managing metrics to monitor the quality of the information and find opportunities for enhancements. 

Concluding, Issa-Abbas says that USAA has information governance and data quality stewardship management routines that happen at various levels at different times throughout months, quarters, and even years.