Top Three Priorities of Effective CDAOs

The most effective data and analytics leaders focus on creating business value, nurturing data and analytics talent, and changing culture, according to Gartner. The role of the chief data and analytics officer (CDAO) is growing in influence as it becomes required for organizations to transform data into business value.

“CDAOs must deliver tangible business outcomes for their organizations and stakeholders, but they struggle to show value. Leaders need to prove how D&A can improve business processes, lead to better decisions, and support digital transformation,“ said Carlie Idoine, VP Analyst at Gartner.

To accomplish these outcomes, CDAOs must exhibit the right traits and behaviors to be effective in their role. Gartner has identified four key areas that influence a CDAO’s level of effectiveness:

1. Leadership: Creating and sustaining a strong D&A function by exhibiting critical leadership behaviors such as relationship building, influencing, communication, and building an engaged team.

2. Skills and Culture: Making data-informed decisions a habit across the enterprise - something business users do automatically as part of their workflow — by enhancing data literacy and making it simple for business users to integrate data and analytics into their workflows.

3. Operational Excellence: Improving the efficiency and quality of business processes through platforms and tools to enable more consistent and higher-quality execution.

4. Business Outcomes: Generating business value and supporting transformation by infusing D&A throughout the organization.

“A clear trend among top-performing CDAOs is linking data and analytics to prioritized, measured business outcomes, while also forging partnerships across the business and building an engaged team,“ said Idoine. “CDAOs who focus on specific business objectives show value to stakeholders locally and organizations globally and boost their overall effectiveness.“