Georgina Millán y Mercedes Lucas
The Universidad Europea of Madrid is currently hosting the Digital Business week. During this week at the university talks about Business Analytics are being given. The audience of these talks are mostly the students in the careers of business or other careers involved in the business environment as well as everyone interested in the topic.
Rafael Fernández Campos is strategy usage director as well as the president of de CDOs (Chief Data Officer) club in Spain, leading the transformation of information systems and promoting a sustainable data culture. He also holds the position of Director of Information Strategy and Regulatory Reporting at CaixaBank. His talk started with an explanation about how data is transforming the business sector right now and the importance of if. He gave a clear look about how our future would be modelled by strategy. He mentioned that CDO, which is the company he works for, is responsible for 20 different countries around the world. A lot of employees working for companies lose their job due to not knowing the importance of managing data. There are 3 keys for having a plan that leads us to reach our goal which are: value, strategy and alignment (this one is the most difficult issue when trying to succeed).
He explained that there is a ¨ladder¨ with four steps that companies have to follow to reach the goal which are, data for control, data for strategy, data strategy and data that changes my strategy. Companies have the opportunity of changing their model and source of income if they follow the steps of this ladder but only a few companies reach this goal. He quoted that «a goal without a plan is just a wish” by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. CDO has a principle that says that if you have data you must use it because it gives you value ¨evolution is changing the answers, revolution is changing the questions¨.There are 21 different targets in the world of data gathered in 4 different domains.
When a company is facing a problem profitability will help solve it, profitability is a measure of how efficiently a business converts its expenses into profits for its owners. Every company has some models that help them reach their goals, for example: cost model, recommendation model, forecasting model, and more. These models guide the company into knowing what to do, what to not do and what to do first. Bad data management is one of the big issues that make companies fail and companies need resources to solve these problems. If companies don’t measure they won’t be able to prioritize their problems when trying to solve them and won’t know how to build a strategy. When this happens companies have to hire data scientists and redo their models. That’s why data quality is important. Companies need managers with the ability to change how things are done. 60% of CEOs serve for less than 3 years in their position because they can’t explain the value of what’s happening. You need ambition to bring the company to transformation strategies and once you learn that your business model changes. There is an important focus of value for companies: purpose, deliver quick, measure and communicate. After the talk was done Rafael took some extra time to answer questions from the public.