Embracing data as a corporate asset—and a source of competitive advantage—is not just a “good idea” that companies should consider. Such adoption will help determine the winners and losers across multiple markets and industries in the future. In the last couple of years, corporate focus has shifted: first, from investing in the right technology and tools; then to acquiring the right talent and skills; and now to building the right organizational culture that can realize the business value of powerful big-data analytic tools. Most organizations today are still focused on putting in place the right technology and talent, but others have evolved further and are working toward fostering a data-centric corporate culture.

1. A report from the Economist Intelligence Unit
Sponsored by

2. © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 20141
Driving a data-centric culture: The leadership challenge
In September 2014, The Economist Intelligence
Unit (EIU) carried out a global survey of 395
C-level executives with sponsorship from Platfora.
The survey sample consists of executives from 18
different industries and is balanced across Asia-
Pacific (34%), North America (27%), Western
Europe (26%) and the rest of the world (13%).
About half of respondents’ organisations have
annual revenue of more than $500m, of which one-
in-five report more than $5bn in revenue.
About the survey
Embracing data as a corporate asset—and a source
of competitive advantage—is not just a “good idea”
that companies should consider. Such adoption
will help determine the winners and losers across
multiple markets and industries in the future.
In the last couple of years, corporate focus has
shifted: first, from investing in the right
technology and tools; then to acquiring the right
talent and skills; and now to building the right
organisational culture that can realise the business
value of powerful big-data analytic tools. Most
organisations today are still focused on putting in
place the right technology and talent, but others
have evolved further and are working toward
fostering a data-centric corporate culture.
Organisational structure is
necessary—but only the
beginning
To capture the business benefits of big data, CEOs
and their C-level teams face the formidable
challenge of transforming how their organisations
think about data and what they do to derive
relevant and actionable insights from the wealth of
information that is increasingly available to them.
The top-down approach they devise and implement
for executing their big-data strategy is critical to
their success, and so is the bottom-up engagement
with data analytics they cultivate among middle
management and rank-and-file employees.
Much attention has been given to the structural
changes forward-looking companies are making to
strengthen the ownership of big-data strategies.
Within the enterprise, these structures harmonise
the thinking and efforts across business units. Such
changes include the creation of new leadership
roles and new governance bodies focused on data
analytics. For example, earlier this year, Wells
Fargo, a top-four US bank, named Charles Thomas
to the newly created position of chief data officer
(CDO), with the mandate to oversee the company’s
data strategy, provide enterprise data governance
and determine ways to leverage data for improved
risk management and customer experiences.
“We had hired people and invested significantly,
Driving a data-centric culture:
The leadership challenge

3. © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 20142
Driving a data-centric culture: The leadership challenge
but it was done in silos—there was no harmony,”
says Mr Thomas. As CDO, his mission became to tie
all the corporate efforts together and, in his words,
“to enable and govern” the intra-organisational
discourse of managing and capitalising on data and
information as corporate assets. Another structural
element Wells Fargo introduced is the Enterprise
Data Council—a governing body that includes the
“heads of state of data” of all vertical and
horizontal business units; the council provides a
shared foundation for data initiatives, such as
harmonised data standards and definitions.
But the trickier, and arguably more important,
changes involve company culture. Creating new
roles and units can be done overnight, but evolving
an enterprise into a data-driven organisation takes
a lot more—and a lot longer. What are the key
ingredients to successfully fostering a corporate
big-data culture?
The recipe for successfully
leading a data-centric culture:
Inspire with values and vision
Culture starts at the top. And so does the challenge
of creating or evolving into a data-driven
organisation. A chief executive who leads and
inspires by example is often at the core of
successful data-driven organisations. “Our CEO is a
computer science major—a numbers person,” says
Rod Morris, senior vice-president of marketing and
operations of Opower, a cloud-based software
solutions provider to the utility industry, “so data
underpins everything we do—from providing
real-time energy savings tips to customers to
predicting the success of our recruiting campaigns
to deciding what soft drinks to offer in the
employee pantry.”
Another key ingredient that the CEO and the top
leadership team need to provide is a strong
values-based vision of what a data-driven culture
could be, and should be, and what that would do
for the business and the organisation. “You have to
paint a very vivid picture of tomorrow,” says Mr
Thomas. He adds that at Wells Fargo, customer
service is a core value that motivates employees at
all levels. So he and the C-level team have
successfully framed top-priority data initiatives as
seizing “missed opportunities” for employees to do
more for their customers and serve them better.
Our survey findings confirm the importance of
top-down vision and leadership—respondents from
companies with above-average revenue growth,
profitability and innovation performance are twice
as likely as the rest to report that their CEO and the
rest of the C-level team have a very positive
attitude towards big-data analytics.
Enable with expertise and education
A lot is being said and done about big-data
analytics in the business world today, but real
knowledge and understanding of the latest
data-science methods and tools, and how they can
be applied to drive business outcomes, are still
hard to come by among corporate executives.
One-third of executives responding to our survey
see the lack of understanding about how to apply
big data to their role or function as the most
common internal obstacle to greater use of
big-data analytics.
At the same time, such applied knowledge can
be a true value driver, as strong-performing
companies say that they are more likely to have
executives who are well-versed in big data and its
practical uses. Over 61% of respondents from
companies with self-assessed above-average
revenues and profitability agree that most senior
executives in their organisations have a good
understanding of big-data applications and how
they apply to their business.
Only 38% of average or below-average
performers feel the same way. Mr Thomas of Wells
Fargo considers securing the right expertise and
talent to be critical to success, as is the continued
education of business executives and re-education
of existing analysts and statisticians. “A big part of
my mission,” he says, “is to cultivate ‘activist
analysts’ who are not only analytically gifted and
trained, but can also think like business people,
understand business needs, and internalise
business objectives.”

4. © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 20143
Driving a data-centric culture: The leadership challenge
Big-data analytics are seen as critical and transformational for
many businesses—the EIU survey, sponsored by Platfora, reveals
that 47% of respondents see such analytics as a useful tool along
with other emerging technologies. Moreover, 23% think big data
will revolutionise the way their business is managed and another
22% see big data as essential to dealing with rapidly increasing
volumes of information. “Learning how to use data as a corporate
asset is not just a ‘nice to have’ tactic—it is a matter of survival,
a ‘live or die’ challenge for companies,” says Scott Klososki,
a former CEO of three successful tech start-up companies and
principal at consulting firm Future Point of View.
Our survey findings support this conclusion. Respondents’
beliefs in big-data opportunities for risk management and
information-gathering are even more pronounced among top
performers—companies that report above-average performance
across an array of business metrics, including revenue growth,
profitability, customer satisfaction and innovation (see Figure 1
below).
Yet, most companies struggle to extract the value of big data—
63% of our survey respondents admit that their organisation
tends to be cautious in adopting new processes related to big
data, preferring to wait until they are industry standards.
EIU survey data make a case for data-centrism
Figure1. Executives’ views on the future of big data, segmented by their companies’ performance across five key business metrics
% of respondents
Big data will revolutionise the
way businesses are managed
Big data will be a useful tool among
many other emerging technologies
Big data is essential to deal with rapidly
increasing volumes of information
Big data is a fad that will
pass in due time
Don’t know/Not applicable
Source: Economist Intelligence Unit survey, September, 2014.
Profitability Revenue growth Customer experience Risk management Innovation
27
18
47
49
23
19
2
6
3
8
27
18
45
51
25
16
1
6
2
8
26
16
46
52
21
11
3
4
4
7
28
18
48
47
19
24
2
5
3
6
27
17
47
49
23
19
1
6
2
8
Promote collaboration and transparency
Even in the presence of a strong top-down vision of
and leadership on big-data strategy, and with
abundant analytical expertise across the
organisation, mustering the necessary agreement
and collaborative focus among top executives and
their departments is still very challenging.
According to our survey results, lack of agreement
about the value of big data within the senior
management team is the third most common
obstacle (selected by 23% of respondents) that
stands in the way of greater use of data analytics.
“There’s no magic alignment,” says Mr Thomas,
referring to the need for the top leadership team to
constantly drive buy-in and cohesion of focus
among different executives to achieve the big-data
strategic vision.
A unified approach to big-data initiatives is
important for their success and is also key to
overall success of the company—survey
respondents from top-performing companies are
much more likely to state that their senior
executives collaborate on implement big-data
initiatives (39% vs 25% for average and below-
average performers). How is that done in practice?
Mr Thomas believes that one critical success factor
is the ability of his team to concentrate the
corporate big-data agenda on areas that are very
relevant to the business units and to ensure a good
balance among the topics of interest to different
departments.
Another effective tactic, according to Mr Morris
of Opower, is letting the data and the results speak
for themselves. “Transparency cures issues of
cohesion, collaboration and competing agendas,”
he adds. At Opower, data-laden dashboards are
used at all levels as powerful tools to support
decisions and justify resource allocations.

5. © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 20144
Driving a data-centric culture: The leadership challenge
Engage through communication and
transparency
Culture is about leadership, and leadership is about
communication. The big-data transformation
companies are undergoing requires active and
deliberate change management—and constant
communication. “Most executives realise they need
better analytics and are ready to embrace big
data—they just don’t know how to get there,” says
Mr Thomas, “so you have to constantly
communicate and inspire.” He continues that
executives and employees from different business
areas often have very different perspectives,
knowledge levels and priorities. Therefore, finding
a common language to speak about big-data
initiatives is a real challenge. “The burden is on the
leadership to communicate and on the CDO to
translate and create ambassadors and evangelists”
throughout the organisation to convert the science
and technology into opportunities and results.
The corporate big-data challenge has evolved
from one of technology and tools to one of culture
and leadership. In our survey, one-quarter of
respondents admit that they have no experience
with the human aspects of big-data initiatives. For
companies that underperform in profitability and
revenue growth, this percentage is as high as 38%.
To succeed in realising the business benefits that
big data promises to deliver, executives need to
focus not only on acquiring the technology and
tools and realigning the organisation but, most
important, on rallying and leading the enterprise
through the cultural transformation of becoming a
truly data-driven organisation.

6. © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 20145
Driving a data-centric culture: The leadership challenge
Whilst every effort has been taken to verify the accuracy of this
information, neither The Economist Intelligence Unit Ltd. nor the
sponsor of this report can accept any responsibility or liability
for reliance by any person on this white paper or any of the
information, opinions or conclusions set out in the white paper.
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