Data Leaders Building and Executing a Pandemic Plan

CDAOs representing a portion of the largest companies in Washington D.C. met virtually on April 7th to discuss the unprecedented challenges they are facing due to COVID-19. At the time of the town hall, Washington D.C. had closed all schools and non-essential businesses and issued a shelter-in-place order to all residents.

In this virtual gathering, participants discussed their role during this crisis and the impact of COVID-19 on their organization. Prior to the town hall, CDAOs responded to a survey indicating the following:

38% are continuing standard business operations at a reduced level

51% expect to return to standard business operations in less than 3 months 

48% report an extremely high impact on their organization’s revenue

29% predict an extremely high impact on their organization’s budget

Leading the discussion was moderator Patrice Brucko, Head, US Office of the Chief Data Officer and Privacy at TD Bank. The contributing panelists were Carlos Rivero, Chief Data Officer, Commonwealth of Virginia; Sebastian Stoessel, Head of Data & Analytics, Audi; and Scott Clendaniel, Data Scientist, Legg Mason. They provided insights from the private and public sector and a variety of industries. Despite coming from different industries, they were aligned on major impacts of the crisis; however, their approaches to address these impacts varied.

Immediate Response

During these uncertain times, CDAOs and their direct reports are at the center of their company's decision-making process. They are working to collect, distribute and arm their company with reliable information to navigate the pandemic. In order to successfully share information, remote access capabilities were required. While most data and analytics teams were well-equipped to move to remote work environments, other departments, franchises and clients were not. This posed a challenge to provide them with valuable information quickly. 

In addition to the challenges of connecting with new remote workers and clients, some faced strains on their infrastructure and capacity. They were faced with the question of how to ensure data access and governance due to their regulatory environment.

Impact on Business Operations

For a few, there was little impact on the day-to-day operations with the main change being an increase in communication amongst teams and stakeholders. For other organizations, they faced a massive challenge and had to close their brick and mortar locations and shift the business focus to essential functions only. 

Many CDAOs are faced with how to efficiently operate with budget and expense restrictions and must protect their initiatives by clearly demonstrating the value of data during the crisis. In some industries, like government, cost cutting is not an option. These services are considered essential to U.S. citizens. While they are working arduously to serve the public with the resources at their disposal, CDAOs in the government sector have found that they are being more reactive than they have been before resulting in longer workdays.

Adapting Policies, Trainings, Technologies

The biggest change CDAOs are facing is working remotely and the cultural impact that it is is having on their organizations. Many of the organizations’ workers and clients were not prepared to work remotely. The companies have implemented structured LMS plans or ad hoc virtual, one-on-one training sessions. 

Most leaders have been adapting a more compassionate and supportive policy towards their direct reports that are working with these technologies for the first time. The learning curve has been significant, but they are working to educate their workers and keep morale high. 

One thing that has become clear during this crisis is that data and analytics functions as the brain of the organization leading all decisions, and that data is more valuable now than ever.

Thoughts from the Community 

During these times, proactive analytics are in demand within all organizations. The question on many minds is, how can companies move from reactive analytics to proactive analytics?  While this will be difficult to do during a crisis, arming your organization with the tools to be self-sufficient with their data has proven to be successful and is allowing people to make future-focused decisions.

by CDAOs, for CDAOs

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