Latha Subramanian, SVP and Head of Data Engineering and Analytics at GM Financial, speaks with Rohit Choudhary, CEO of Acceldata, in a video interview about data as the core of the organization, navigating the regulatory landscape, driving digital transformation with a data-centric approach, data integrity through governance and collaboration, empowering the business to own data, and expanding data quality programs.

Leading with data at the core

With a career deeply rooted in data, Subramanian has been leading a global team responsible for data analytics and engineering at the financial arm of General Motors.

As she explains, GM Financial serves as “a captive auto financing arm for GM,” operating in every market where General Motors is present. The organization provides auto loans to the GM auto consumers.

“It’s a very data organization, and it’s at the heart and soul of our business,” Subramanian notes. From customer interactions to loan payments, data flows through every aspect of the consumer lifecycle.

Speaking of key data initiatives at GM Financial, she mentions customer journey analytics, wherein they produce decision support on large data sets and customer data journeys. For operational efficiency, the organization leverages data for internal process optimization for better experience delivery.

On stepping into the role, Subramanian quickly recognized the opportunities and challenges within the company’s existing data infrastructure. “We had a data landscape and there is a lot of work that needs to be done here,” she shares. Under her leadership, GM Financial has launched several foundational initiatives to modernize and enhance its data capabilities:

• Data cloud modernization program
• Master Data Management (MDM): Ensuring “clean data points for customer data as well as for product.”
• Data Governance and stewardship: Developing an “enhanced data governance framework” to ensure data integrity and support sound decision-making.

Navigating a complex and regulated data environment

Next, Subramanian mentions that the captive auto financing industry, whether GM Financial or its similarly sized competitors, operates within a highly regulated environment. Given the nature of their business, which involves handling vast amounts of consumer data, adhering to privacy laws is paramount, she adds. “There are opt-outs that our consumers go through,” she explains, highlighting the importance of complying with strict privacy regulations.

The regulatory landscape is extensive and global. Subramanian notes the need to comply with multiple global frameworks such as CCPA and GDPR. In addition to these, as a publicly traded company, GM Financial must also follow a range of stock market regulations, she says.

“It’s an ever-changing landscape,” maintains Subramanian, underlining the necessity of keeping data management front and center. She adds, “We have to quickly react to all of the compliance requirements.”

Driving digital transformation with a data-centric approach

Subramanian outlines the complexity of GM Financial’s data landscape, noting that the company collects data from numerous sources across a broad ecosystem of applications. “It’s a very complex landscape,” she says, pointing out that customer service representatives currently navigate through six different systems to originate and service loans.

 “We are modernizing and digitizing and replacing all of our servicing and origination systems at the moment,” Subramanian affirms, and at the core of this transformation lies data.

As part of this effort, GM Financial is also modernizing its data cloud platform. Subramanian highlights two critical focus areas — data quality and data observability. She elaborates that data quality puts emphasis on completeness, accuracy, and timeliness, and data observability focuses on monitoring, visibility, early alerting, performance metrics, and root cause analysis.

To support these technical advancements, the company implemented a robust data governance framework early in the process. “We have a business glossary that went into production last year,” Subramanian shares. This glossary has been instrumental in aligning the organization on shared definitions and establishing a single source of truth across the enterprise.

Importantly, Subramanian states that the transformation has not been limited to technology alone. “We focused not only on data from a technology perspective, but also from a people and process perspective,” she says, which “paid off big dividends.”

Strengthening data integrity through governance and collaboration

Highlighting the complexities of driving data integrity within a large organization, Subramanian shares that the challenge lies in aligning various departments around consistent definitions.

“In terms of establishing integrity, one of the things that we find is that we have multiple sources of truth for the same definition,” she says.

She continues that developing shared definitions across departments has been critical to ensuring data integrity. “Trying to create that source of data integrity and making sure we arrive at a common definition has been key,” she says.

Empowering the business to own data

Thereafter, Subramanian highlights another cultural shift of helping the business understand its role in data ownership. “The business is the owner of the data, and IT is the gatekeeper,” she says. This shift in mindset has been part of an ongoing journey, including the launch of a data stewardship pilot.

To support this transition, GM Financial has worked closely with customers to enable them to adapt the business glossary.

In parallel, the organization has implemented a strong data quality program, first rolled out in its Latin American operations and now being extended to the U.S. Subramanian states that the program emphasizes key performance indicators (KPIs) tied to data quality, including:

• Data completeness
• Data visibility
• Accuracy in data reporting

“We ensure that our customers are getting their KPIs met through those data quality programs,” she affirms.

Data governance has also played a vital role in reinforcing data integrity from the top down, says Subramanian. In conclusion, she says, “Data governance has been front and center for us in bringing all leaders of CXO level together.” By aligning leadership early, decisions spanning people, processes, and technology now flow more efficiently through the organization.

CDO Magazine appreciates Latha Subramanian for sharing her insights with our global community.