Even greater reliance on data could be the greatest thing to emerge from the pandemic, say IT leaders

A panel of senior IT leaders hosted by Computing argue that the pandemic has broadened enterprise interest in data, but warn that care must be taken to present the right data and tools

Greater demands for access to data in order to drive better decision making is one of the trends to emerge from the Coronavirus pandemic.

That was one of the themes of a roundtable for senior IT leaders hosted recently by Computing.

"We've traditionally been an immature data organisation," said one IT leader from a major retail organisation. "But over the pandemic we've seen an increase in demand for data right across the organisation. We've also seen a greater need to automate which has in turn improved our data processes. We've moved from five to over one hundred people using our data platform. That's because we made it available and useful, the hunger for it was already there," she added.

Another delegate, from a government body, said that data was always important to his organisation, but they've added more automation.

"We've always used customer data to look at how to improve that experience, so we haven't had to pivot that way due to the pandemic. But we have started using RPA (Robotic Process Automation) extensively to try to take the load off our call centres. And we've used data to ensure that those processes are doing what they're supposed to do."

One attendee, a head of data from a global banking group, explained that whilst data can be essential, it must be properly rationed amongst the right people.

"Previously lots of decisions were made by gut feel, but we are seeing a shift in culture now. We're all becoming data scientists. So we've refreshed the group data strategy, as we have a desire to elevate various data disciplines up to where they should be.

"You can't let everyone loose on data sets they don't understand, it should be a professional discipline. Everyone can have the tools to do the basics, but not free license to join everything up. A big part of it is communication and education. Everyone has a part to play, but it might not be the part you expect. And the C-suite needs to demand both high quality and high fidelity data."

Also present was Greg Hanson, VP EMEA & LATAM Sales Specialists, Informatica. He said: "Organisations are not just wanting to shift to cloud, now it's about modernising. Some companies are realising that they're suffering from cloud sprawl, where they've adopted technologies at a pace, without really thinking about it. So they've taken on technical debt when they want to be more agile.

"We've also seen a trend towards self-service when it comes to data - providing the right data to individuals around the business. But with this clamour for data, you need to ensure you're doing it in the right way. That's about data literacy and data governance."

A technology leader from a big pharmaceutical organisation built on that point.

"We've noticed an increase in self-service data. We're a mature data organisation, and we've seen that you have to get your data right. If you allow self-service, it needs to be curated in a way that can be trusted. You don't want someone to base a decision on a spreadsheet full of data they stumbled across somewhere.

"You have lots of data spread over lots of systems, different cloud vendors and different geographies. That needs to be catalogued with the correct governance to understand it properly. You also need to think about the balance between utility, privacy and security," he added.

The retail IT leader explained that data is increasingly driving decision-making in her organisation.

"We're on a journey to make data-driven decision making possible for everyone. We refer to that as our ‘data community', and we envisage the whole organisation being part of that community. We want people to create their own data stories.

"So we're showcasing how data can be used, providing the platform and tools to allow everyone to use it. We developed clinical reporting out to our stores. The clinicians showed that overall we were missing out on 70per cent of glaucoma referrals. We shared that data with the NHS, and that formed the basis of the government's decision to open optometrists during lockdown. So we didn't provide that data for that purpose, but that's how it was used during the pandemic."

Informatica's Hanson emphasised the point about data quality being paramount.

"If we're going to become data-driven we have to ensure that the data is high quality. Especially once combined with AI. If the data's poor we're going to make bad decisions at an accelerated rate once we can automate more. We've seen a big shift towards single-view projects, like customer product in order to have better engagement. Single view of supplier and materials was really important with supply chains heavily disrupted during the pandemic.

"As we start to use all this data, we need to think about how we use it. Customers make decisions based upon experience. We need to be responsible with customer data. That's partly around how we manage their data, respecting their privacy and trust."

The event was run under Chatham House rules, so most names and organisations have been witheld.