(US and Canada) Yingying Kang, Director of Data Science, Assurant, speaks with Jason Masker, Field Chief Technology Officer, Stratascale (an SHI Company), about her professional journey, enabling a data-driven culture and demonstrating value to business stakeholders.

Kang spent nearly half of the last two decades of her career in the airlines, hospitality, railroad, and urban planning industries. She spent the rest in the IT industry. She says her responsibilities revolve around customer experience, operational efficiency, enabling a data-driven culture, and connecting people to information. 

Achieving a data-driven culture depends on how messages are delivered to the company and its clients and on delivering data insights in a simplified manner.

Kang points out that it gets easier to shape data-driven culture once the business stakeholders understand data’s value. It also depends on the maturity level of partnership between data-driven processes and business decision makers. Kang emphasizes, however, that it is necessary to be mindful of the audience because different audiences understand things differently. 

In conclusion, Kang says that anything can be quantified, but it is essential to understand what is most important for the business. Areas such as potential usage of solutions and their outcome are crucial.