The Chief Data Officer is a professional who helps an organization in valuing its data across the enterprise. Even though the role of the Chief Data Officer may not be the same for all organizations, yet, he is given the responsibility of data governance. Besides this, he is also expected to take the initiatives of analytics and anything else which is associated with the use data. Most of the regulated industries have a competent Chief Data Officer to assist them. According to the predictions of Gartner, about 50% of all regulated industries will have a Chief Data Officer by 2017.

Who is a Chief Data Officer?

The Chief Data Officer is a senior executive of a regulated industry. He is responsible for;

  • Analyzing the wide data and the information strategy of the firm
  • Monitoring the process of data governance
  • Formulating and executing data related policies
  • Effectively exploiting data

An ideal Chief Data Officer will be accountable and responsible for the protection of data and ensuring its privacy. He will also analyze the quality and the life cycle management of data. Finally, he is expected to exploit the various data assets for creating a unique business value. However, apart from having ample knowledge in analytics, data governance, and data management, the Chief Data Officer should be a responsible and accountable person.

Why is the Chief Data Officer essential in all organizations?

A Chief Data Officer plays one of the most significant roles in almost all organizations. He is responsible for dealing with both the political and technical intricacies that usually swirl around the data. Following are some of the reasons stating why his role is n all organizations.

Aggregation of enterprise-wide data

This is one of the major benefits of having a Chief Data Officer in an organization. The Officer is responsible for aggregating the enterprise-wide data for various business proceedings. Nowadays, enterprise information in most of the companies, are siloed across multiple databases and OS’. This information is related to the products, consumers, organizational investments and many other core aspects of the organization. As the larger global companies are more involved in mergers and newer acquisitions of companies, it becomes quite challenging for them to handle and manage this wide data. In such cases, a Chief Data Officer comes handy in cumulating and aggregating this disparate data.

Optimizing the use of data

The Chief Data Officers are expected to optimize the use of data, in the following ways;

  • Leveraging the data – This means the Chief Data Officer has to leverage (i.e.) find newer and better ways to use and incorporate the existing data in the various business proceedings. They need to come up with unique and innovative ways for leveraging the data.
  • Enriching the data – In this process, the professionals have to enrich and augment the data by combining the various internal and external data sources. They have to find the sources and enrich each of them, individually.
  • Proper monetization of the data – The Chief Data Officer is also responsible for the monetization of data. He has to come up with newer and better sources of revenue that are tied to the existing data.
  • Data protection – This is one of the prime responsibilities of the Chief Data Officer. He is responsible for finding better and more stringent method to protect the privacy and security of data.
  • Upkeep the data – The professionals have to manage the health of the relevant data which is under the governance and upkeep it from time to time.