Everyone knows about the infamous C-suite, but there may be a new permanent resident joining the ranks of the CEO, CFO, CIO, CMO and CTO: the CDO. The Chief Data Officer first started appearing in Fortune 500 companies
five to ten years ago, but in the past few years, the position has continued to gain steam.
Starting in 2012, NewVantage Partners began publishing the “
Big Data Executive Survey.” Although it is not claimed to be a scientific study by any means, its results are still useful for getting an idea of what is going on in the business world. NVP released their 2016 instead of 2015 report on January 11
th (read the full report
here). They have stated that this will be their last survey, since “Big Data is now mainstream.” In 2014, they interviewed 125 executives from 59 different companies, while in the current survey they list an unnamed number of respondents from 44 different companies. They discovered that 54% of respondents have a CDO in their organization versus 43% in 2014, 26% in 2013 and only 19% in 2012.
In a similar fashion,
Fortune published an
article in September, which, according to a Forrester study, found that almost half of the 3,000 companies polled “regularly have someone assigned to oversee data strategy, while another 16% plan to do so within another year.”
It seems that CDO roles (or at least some sort of data guru roles) are very much broadening and expanding to meet today’s business needs. But, what does a CDO do? Depending on the company, responsibilities vary. Through data-driven insights, CDOs may focus on leveraging data as a competitive advantage, legitimizing it, inspiring change, and identifying new opportunities according to a
Wired article. Of course, everything for the CDO revolves around data, and more than likely taking the giant mounds of information to figure out ways to turn them into dollars or savings.
American Express, General Electric, GlaxoSmithKline, Time, and Wells Fargo are just a handful of companies with CDOs. Finance is a common habitat for CDOs, though you can find them in almost every industry. With the ever-increasing availability of data in today’s world, I do believe the CDO is here to stay, at least for a decade or two. In the distant future, though, there is the potential reasonable possibility that the role gets absorbed. After all, in many cases, the CDO reports either to the CEO or the CIO. As a result, the responsibilities of the CDO may come to be a normal part of the CEO/CIO workbook.
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