Building a Data Strategy Your C-Suite Will Support

Building a Data Strategy your C-Suite Will Support
Reid Colson | Senior Vice President, Data & Analytics | UDig

Reid Colson
20+ year career in data spanning several roles and industries:
• Data Board Member, MIT Center for Information Systems Research
• Chief Data and Analytics Officer, Markel
• Head of Innovation, Markel
• VP, Data Engineering, Capital One
• Sr Director, Data Analytics & Data Governance, Capital One
Senior Vice President, Data & Analytics, UDig
2

Why do you need a data strategy?
What is a data strategy?
How to build a data strategy
How to sell a data strategy
Table of Contents
3

Why do you need a data strategy?
When you talk to your c-suite, lead with Why so they understand why they should pay
attention. Like all of us, they are busy and have a lot going on. Make sure you get their
attention up front.
4

Data leaders are more profitable, but few firms achieve “Leader” stage
5
16%
48%
29%
7%
The reason you need a data strategy is that being a data leader in any industry is an advantage that creates
measurable financial benefits.

A data strategy is the key success factor in becoming a data leader
6

A data strategy is a comprehensive plan
8
A data strategy is a comprehensive plan to employ data and analytics to achieve critical business objectives
that touches on four key concepts.
Story
• Vision
• Goals
• Plans
• Use Cases
• Success Metrics
Oversight
• Delivery Teams & Roles
• Stakeholders / Committees
• Key Processes
• Risk / Issue Management
• Program Funding
Transformation
• Requirements
• Delivery Methodology
• Data Architecture
• Data Infrastructure
• Data Governance
Culture
• Change Management Plan
• Education & Training
• Communication Plan
• Role / Job Family Structures
• Communities of Practice

Keep a few best practices in mind before you begin
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• Lead with the business strategy and business objectives
• Identify and leverage a strong executive sponsor
• Bring key influencers into the process early
• Look at your entire organization but prioritize focus areas
• Pessimists and detractors can be your biggest allies

How to build a data strategy
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Build the data strategy as a formal program
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Interviews
Document &
Policy Analysis
Current State
Articulation
Future State
Articulation
Final
Deliverables
1
SET UP YOUR STEERING COMMITTEE
Governance, oversight, communication, and milestone reviews
2
ESTABLISH THE WORKING TEAM
Identify strategy development resources, secure time, bring
team up to speed, share objectives, and kickoff the effort
Because of the breadth of the data strategy, a formal operating program is useful to marshal resources and manage a
wide range of considerations.

Leverage external resources and partners for credibility and speed
12
Maturity models provide an objective
structure to evaluate current versus desired
state
Consulting partners can accelerate the
process and provide guidance and expertise
to help manage key risks
Product vendors can offer training and help
getting ramped on their tools
You don’t have to go it alone in building a data strategy. There are many resources and partners you can engage to
increase your chances of success.

Build artifacts to communicate, execute, and govern the data strategy
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High level roadmap along with a delivery
plan covering investment, resources, and
milestones
Organizational views that show teams,
ongoing committees, and training required
to deliver the target state
A plain language strategy and objectives
outlining costs, benefits, and timing
A target state architecture showing the
future achieved via the data strategy
Data Strategy Vision
Ensure everyone can easily use data to
do their best work in any role:
• Data is trusted and high quality
• Data is accessible and well-documented
• Data is current
• Data is easy to use

How to sell a data strategy
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Begin with the end in mind
15
Selling the data strategy begins before you launch your program
Strategy Activity Purpose
• Thoughtful engagement of key executive
stakeholders early in the process
• Determine metrics and key strategy
benefits
• Wide evaluation of business challenges
and opportunities to prioritize focus
• Creates natural sponsors and evangelists
for the data strategy
• Building a business case to show the value
of the data strategy
• Uncover potential strategy partners and
use cases with high potential return

Craft a clear business case showing the value and timing of costs and benefits
Ensure everyone can do their best
work by making trusted data easy to
find and use throughout all areas of
the organization.
OBJECTIVE
$5MM $15MM
Project Cost (3 Yrs) Benefits (3 Yrs)
$7.5MM 18%
Net Present Value ROI
ANALYSIS
FINANCIAL OPERATIONAL CUSTOMER EMPLOYEE RISK MGT
• New revenue
• Cost reduction
• Better cash mgt
• Improve efficiency
• Better time to market
• Higher product quality
• Higher satisfaction
• Improved retention
• Increased referrals
• Longer staff retention
• Improved culture
• Higher engagement
• Better data security
• Compliance w/ GDPR
• Resiliency
FINANCIALS
BENEFITS
(2,500,000)
-
2,500,000
5,000,000
7,500,000
10,000,000
Yr 1 Yr 2 Yr 3
Costs Benefits Net
Illustrative #’s
Download the Excel Business Case Template

Focus on the benefits and help key leaders visualize the future
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• Labor-intensive data entry and data prep work
• Data source connections continually reestablished
• Manual work required to gather and consolidate data across
various applications / sources
• Multiple data sources; inconsistent information
• No single version of truth for reporting
Today: slow, manual, latent, low quality Tomorrow: fast, automated, easy, trusted
• Data is governed: cleansed, prepared, trustworthy
• Detailed and trending data analysis
• Data stores are updated automatically, as are reports / graphs /
visualizations
• Focus shifts from manually preparing data to analyzing and building
predictions using data

Be thoughtful about your communication strategy
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You likely won’t get the support you need in a single meeting. You’ll need to garner support, build evangelists, and
work up to the decision-making forum through a series of conversations.
Trusted Partners
Supportive Executives
Potential Detractors
Decision Forums
Make sure key peers and your program team are all aligned with the message
and iterate to incorporate their input and feedback.
Socialize with trusted executives first to get guidance. See who might not be on
board and help them with message points to help evangelize.
Approach potential detractors to uncover points of concern before
heading into any formal decision-making meetings.
Go into the forum knowing you have the support you need
due to the up-front legwork to socialize the plan.
By the time you get here, you should already have the buy-in you need.

Wrap up
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• Creating a comprehensive data strategy is the key to successfully monetizing your data.
• Including key influencers early to shape the strategy and help influence buy-in.
• Leveraging external resources builds credibility and accelerates your strategy formulation.
• Running a data strategy as a program helps orchestrate many moving pieces and emphasizes
importance.
Your data strategy is a living document and should be revisited on a regular basis to ensure it fits
the organization's needs.

We’re Happy to Help You on This Journey: UDig Data Capabilities
Advise Design Ingest Analyze
• Data Strategy
• Data Governance
• Data Quality
Our experts ensure your
data strategy aligns to your
business goals and you are
positioned for long term
success.
• Requirements
• Platform Selection
• Design & Migration
• Data Modeling
We help businesses select
and migrate to the data
platform that will be most
effective in meeting their
objectives.
• Data Integration
• Data Cleansing
• Data Warehouses
• Data Lakes
Bring disparate sources of
data together to enable
business processes and
decision making.
Create insights you can
monetize via business
strategy through
visualization and analytics.
• Visualization
• Automated Reporting
• Advanced Analytics
Our engagements typically start with discovery to ensure our approach aligns to your business goals before we make
recommendations.

Business is a journey. And the roadmap to
success is never a straight line. Through
creative solutions and problem solving,
our team enables yours to plan, build,
and transform on your path from good
to great. Then, we leave you better.
You have key business objectives to meet,
and our partnership-based approach
allows us to effectively help you achieve
those goals. From strategy to
transformation, your journey is unique, so
you deserve a technology solution that is
tailored to you.
About UDig
21

reid.colson@udig.com
linkedin.com/in/reidcolson
Let’s Connect
Senior Vice President,
Data & Analytics, UDig
22
Reid Colson
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