Data essentials for leaders
Information Technology powering businesses through data
A large part of any IT or data leadership job is to create a coherent strategy, fostering ongoing relationships and alliances with leaders and specialists in other fields. But if technical challenges are not clearly understood across those different fields, and often dismissed, the best conceived strategies will fail to be executed. In 2022, I wrote these articles for Forbes Technology Council, and now I realise my audience had to reach beyond the technology community if the goal is to lower the barriers between disciplines in an organisation.
I am happy to see that the articles are as relevant today as they were before the wave of open source generative AI entered the business consciousness. This four-part series aims to demystify data-related challenges and offer useful insights to executives and board members leading large pre-digital businesses in financial services.
Part I explains the data inflation phenomenon and why leaders must care about and steer the data agenda for the sake of sustainability.
Data as a reflection of human activity in science and business
In Part II, I cover the role of data in creating business agility in an ever-changing economic ecosystem.
Data is intertwined with business and technology
Part III offers perspectives on data skills that have been overlooked in building leaders and the broader workforce for the future - especially how data expertise must be developed beyond "data jobs".
Data skills are the new rules of the road
And finally, in Part IV, I explore how metadata can provide an X-ray of business operations so that executives can steer the organization from an informed position.
Metadata showing the inner workings of processes
With these perspectives in mind, I hope both technology and business leaders can find more common ground in addressing challenges and opportunities with good data practices!