Is the Chief Data Officer being effective — a scorecard to measure

Data is the new oil. The last decade has seen a tremendous increase in the amount of data generated and stored by enterprises. An increasing amount of data combined with the abundance of cloud computation, big data processing frameworks, and democratization of ML has fueled a data-driven era as a part of the digital transformation within enterprises. Today, data assets represent highly strategic sources of insight across a wide array of business functions, including risk management, sales and marketing, product development, regulatory compliance, and operational performance.

The role of the Chief Data Officer (CDO) is more critical than ever as they define and execute strategies to transform raw data into business value. From the first CDO appointed in 2002 to more than 2/3rd of firms having CDOs today, data has truly become the new oil across all market verticals. Yet, the role of the CDO is not well-defined and varies significantly across enterprises.

In this blog, my goal is to define a scorecard for the role of the CDO. While the scorecard is common, the weights of individual categories vary depending on the enterprise’s tactical and strategic priorities around business needs, data monetization & product strategy, maturity of data processes, and data-driven culture.