THE PRECARIOUS STATE OF THE CDO

INSIGHTS INTO A BURGEONING ROLE

PETER AIKEN, PH.D., DATA BLUEPRINT

SPONSORED BY DATAVERSITY

10124 W. Broad Street, Suite C

Glen Allen, Virginia 23060
Phone 804.521.4056

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INTRODUCTION
The role of the chief data officer (CDO) is relatively new across the organizational
landscape 70% of current CDO positions were created in the last year alone!
The past decade has seen a combination of events, forcing organizations to consider
this increasingly important role:

The sheer quantity of data and data collection, at rates that will continue
to exponentially increase, due to such technologies as mobile devices and
sensors.
The hyper-connected and inter-connected information economy,
which requires data liquidity and point-of-touch access in an increasingly
decentralized, globalized, and federated world.
The power of analytics to drive insights, innovation, agility, and sustained
market competitiveness.
The increasing complexity of regulations and privacy laws, nationally and
internationally.

As these market forces have continued to escalate, the role of the chief information
officer (CIO) has needed to focus on organizational infrastructure and integration
challenges.
The technology portfolios of many organizations are a magnitude more complex than
they were a decade ago. They now include everything from data centers and clouds,
to bring-your-own-device (BYOD) and mobile, to help desks and customer support.
Organizations increasingly recognize both that data is a corporate asset that can
provide tremendous market advantage, and that the strategy and management
of data needs to be de-coupled from technology. Forward-thinking, leading-edge
organizations are aware of this and have instituted the CDO role.
Over time, the role of the CIO has gotten both more complex and more technical.
So have the skill sets required to manage a modern organization. Increasing data
demands and opportunities require an increased focus something most CIOs cannot
afford in the face of increasing technology-management demands.

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Asking them to increase their data KSAs and spend more time on data is a non-starter.
How does the organization not get overwhelmed with logarithmic increases in data
volumes, changing business models, colliding ecosystems, and increasing regulation?
There is still much debate on the role itself: What is a CDO? Is it really necessary? What
are its responsibilities? What services should an office of the CDO provide? And, what
background should a CDO have?
This paper provides guidance and insights into these questions. Our survey was designed
to assess the strength of the relatively new chief data officer position within organizations
and included the following topical areas:
How should we think about the role of the CDO?
What should that role have responsibility for within an organization?
Where should that role sit in the organization chart?
Understanding the answers to these questions can help us build a collective
understanding as we grapple with the higher order questions of:
What is a Chief Data Officer? Is this role necessary? And, what does that role do?
So lets get started by addressing:

What is in a name/title?
Who are this individuals peers?
Where does one obtain the requisite background to qualify?
What responsibilities should the position have?
When does data influence IT development efforts?
Why are these issues not better understood?

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WHAT IS IN A NAME/TITLE?
Title plays an important role for this position.

THE QUESTIONS
These first questions centered on the organizational needs for CDOs and the functions
propagation. Combined, these responses give us a picture of CDO demand and
maturation.
After providing a definition of the CDO function, we asked:

Q1) Does your organization need a CDO?

We also asked:

Q2) Does your organization currently have a CDO, or are you in the process of
creating the position and/or hiring for it?
Q3) How long has the CDO function existed?
We asked, using the following definition:
CDOs leverage their organizations data assets in support of strategy. They manage
enterprise-wide data administration; they are the champions of enterprise information
management. They are typically members of the executive management team.

Q1) Does your organization need a CDO?

RESPONSES
Over 60% replied that their organizations need, or are in the process of hiring, a CDO.
7% indicated that their CIO was currently covering these responsibilities.
8% indicated someone besides the CIO was covering these responsibilities.
8% more indicated they were currently in the process of hiring a CDO.
Interestingly, only 1% selected No our organizational data is not important enough
to warrant this type of attention.

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ANALYSIS
Approximately half (52.7%) of respondents also responded that their organization was
not ready to take advantage of benefits that CDOs might bring.
Many respondents included comments. Those that were important and repeatedly
given included:

Multiple CDOs supporting individual business units

Skepticism that another c-level position could resolve the problem
Many CDOs reporting to CIOs

Several respondents believed that the business thought the function was being
handled by the CIO, but that their knowledge indicated the CIO was not covering
these responsibilities.
A key point is the respondents general belief that the position was needed and could
benefit most organizations.

Q2) Does your organization currently have a CDO, or is it in the process of

creating the position and/or hiring a CDO?

RESPONSES
6.1% - Yes, the individual reports/will report to the CIO.
4.4% - Yes, the individual reports/will report to the business.
3.5% - Yes, it is considered a joint business/IT role in terms of reporting.
67.5% - No, we are not in the process of hiring. We are not even thinking about it.
18.4% - Other - Please provide additional comments.

ANALYSIS
Two-thirds of organizations are not yet convinced of the need to have a full-time
individual, dedicated to leveraging data as an asset. This can be contrasted with the
60% of survey respondents who did recognize this need in their organizations.

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Q3) How long has the CDO role existed at your organization?

RESPONSES
In our sample, no CDO positions existed prior to 5 years ago.1
7.9% of organizations established the function 3-5 years ago.
18.4% of organizations established the function 1-3 years ago.
73.7% of the CDO functions were less than 1 year old.

ANALYSIS
As a growing concern, the CDO function will continue to mature; and, as such, it should
remain flexible and adaptable, to co-evolve with the organizational data challenges.

WHO ARE THIS INDIVIDUALS PEERS?

This portion of the survey dealt with the question of who are the CDOs peers.
Job skill disconnect:
How can you optimize the data for business opportunity if youre not part of the
business conversation?

THE QUESTION
Q10) Regardless of whether you currently have or dont have a CDO at your
organization, which side do you think they SHOULD report to and why? Please
provide additional comments as part of your answer.

RESPONSES
79% of respondents believed that the CDO should report to the business; 21% believed
the CDO should report to IT.

ANALYSIS
Many respondents added qualifications to their responses, but the essence of these
can be summed up by a representative comment:
1

We know this to not be entirely accurate, as our colleague Catheryn Clay Doss served as CDO for CapitalOne
from January 2002 to December 2005. (Sources: linkedin.com, wikipedia.com, and Catheryn Clay Doss.)

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Business actually should own the data

and they are the people who use it for
Business decisions.
Clearly, the overwhelming opinion is that
data is a business function and that the
CDO should report at the same level as
other key asset managers.

Top Job
Top
Top
Information
Operations
Technology
Job
Job

Chief
Data
Officer

Top
Finance
Job

Top
Marketing
Job

Data Governance Organization

CDO BACKGROUND/QUALIFICATIONS
QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES
Q12) Listed below are some key qualifications for a CDO. Please select all that
you find necessary in order to be a successful CDO.
100.0%

88.5%
83.2%

66.4%

62.8%

61.1%

59.3%

59.3%

55.8%

51.3%
46.0%

50.0%

44.3%

41.6%

38.9%
29.2%

0.0%

Extensive
Experience in
Expertise in
Strong
Experience in
industry
defining
operationalizing leadership and creating and
knowledge,
business
C-suite/board deploying best
Data
including
Governance, communication practices and requirements for
methodologies information expertise at the
skills
Data
management intersection of
Stewardship and
risk and other
projects
Data Quality
domains

Information
Experience in
leading major management
program life
information
management cycle experience
programs in key
business areas
related to the
industry

Familiarity with Expertise in Familiarity with Familiarity in Familiarity with Expertise in End-to-end data
setting up and industry data business and IT warehousing
process
creating and
Enterprise
program
architecture,
models
supporting
modeling,
leading best of
Metadata
execution
including
information
semantic
Management class business
familiarity with knowledge and
(business and and IT teams for modeling and analytics teams
leadership
leading
data modeling
information
IT) and OMG
architectural
management
standards
standards such
as TOGAF, FEA
and/or Zachman

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Q13) Listed below are some key traits for a CDO. Please select all that you find
necessary in order to be a successful CDO.
100.0%

93.8%
85.8%

82.3%

82.3%
74.3%

72.6%

66.4%
54.9%
45.1%

50.0%

38.9%
29.2%

0.0%

Possess a
Outstanding
balance of
relationship
technical skills, building and
business
communication
knowledge and
skills
people skills

Politically
savvy

Leader and
visionary

Team builder

Understands
Understand Can work with
SME in
Not too
Entrepreneurial
privacy, data
core
pure IT and
requisite
technical but
security, and
information
information business side not a technical
risk
domains of management
as well as
novice
management risk, industry specialists to methodologies
components of knowledge,
bridge the
and practices
data
product/serviceinformation gap needed to
and customer
effectively
connect
business
requirements
to IT

ANALYSIS
Its interesting to note that, of the qualifications deemed necessary to be a successful
CDO, specific data architecture/engineering skills are noted by less than half the
respondents. This is shown in green on the Q12 responses. We disagree, believing
that knowledge of these promotes poor-quality organizational data decisions. Also
shown in green in the Q13 responses is the interesting artifact that only 29% believed
entrepreneurial skills were necessary. For now, it is clear to say we have a ways to go
before agreeing on precise definitions of CDO capabilities.

CDO RESPONSIBILITIES
QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES
Q7) What kind of organization (roles, people, and responsibilities) does the CDO
have reporting into him/her? Please check all that apply.
We asked about the kind of organization (roles, people, and responsibilities) and
capabilities reporting to the CDO.

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RESPONSES
75% indicated the Data Governance function.
50% indicated the Information Architecture function.
20% indicated the data acquisition and BI functions.
12% indicated compliance.

Q8) What capabilities does the CDO organization provide? Please check all that
apply.
54% data governance
45% enterprise data strategy
43% data quality and master data management
37% information architecture
31% metadata management

ANALYSIS
While the majority agreed about governance and architecture, we clearly have a
ways to go before settling down on precise definitions for capabilities. Of particular
note is the disparity between the functions reporting to the CDOs and the capabilities
provided by CDOs. This shows further evidence of the fields immaturity.

WHEN DOES DATA INFLUENCE IT DEVELOPMENT

EFFORTS?
QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES
Q9) Does the CDO have sufficient support?
27% indicated yes and 73% indicated no.

Q11) Is your organization ready for a CDO?

28% indicated yes and 72% indicated no. Detailed comments included the following
observations:

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 We are led by executive management consisting of promoted technical

people.
We dont understand the role well enough to contemplate a CDO position.
Organization does not treat data as an asset, just an application by-product.

Q5&6) Does the CDO have a staff/budget?

Surprisingly, only 45% of CDOs had a staff; 48% of the CDOs had no budget.

ANALYSIS
Unless and until organizations realize that data is not a project, continuing to attempt to
leverage data as an IT project will produce the same unacceptable results organizations
(as a whole) have been experiencing. Most organizations do not have documented
means of leveraging their organizational data, exemplified by only 1 organization in 10
having a board-approved data strategy. Summary comments included:
Data issues are baked in with IT issues, and there is a need to manage them
separately. Currently, data issues are not handled in an effective manner.
The executive team is not taking data seriously.
Data is, for the most part, considered part of an application.
When compared against most organizational abilities to well implement IT projects
(at least during the planning phases), it is clear insufficient support and organizational
preparedness not to mention general lack of staff and budget indicates that this will
be an uphill climb.

WHY ARE THESE ISSUES NOT BETTER UNDERSTOOD?

QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES
Q3) What were the business drivers for creating the CDO role at your organization?
Write-in responses focused, unsurprisingly, on regulatory/privacy/security issues. Other
items mentioned included reputational risk and the desires to increase data quality
and to reuse common data.

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Q11) Is your organization ready for a CDO? Why or why not?

Most organizations (72%) were not ready for a CDO. Reasons given included:
The organization does not treat data as an asset, just an application by-product.
They think it is the same as the CIO job.
We are still struggling with the basics.

Q14) Data-centric: Purposefully, proactively considering the data needs of the

organization and ecosystem at every part of the planning process, from strategy
development to technology implementation. Based on this definition, does your
organization have a culture that promotes data-centric thinking?
The fact that one-fifth indicated yes is personally motivating to us. The unawareness
among the other four-fifths must be addressed through a combination of professional
organizations, revamped curricula, and increased c-level comprehension.

CONCLUSIONS
While there is a general belief that the position is needed, there is also a healthy
skepticism that having another c-level position will really resolve the data issues existing
within most organizations.
Like the Chief Information Security Officer role 15 years ago, the CDO role is still
evolving. It will have varying types of responsibilities, depending on the organizations
size, structure, and needs.
For maximum effectiveness, the CDO should be a member of the senior executive
team and report into the business side of the organization; for example, the COO or
CEO.
The CDO has the authority and responsibility to drive enterprise data strategy, policies,
processes, efficiencies, and revenue opportunities through better management,
oversight, optimization, and innovation of data assets.

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CDOs have an enterprise focus, and work horizontally to support coordination and
collaboration across business areas. They are strong partners of the business areas, to
align data-management efforts with corporate strategy, goals, and objectives. Yet they
are also strong partners with the CIO, CTO, and CISO for strategy and policies around
technology and security enablement, supporting the organizations data needs. Actual
database development, operations, and integration efforts are still functions of the IT
department, but coordinated with the office of the CDO.
Most senior executives and boards of directors would agree that market change has
accelerated at a heretofore-unseen pace, and that data and analytics will be key
factors in market competitiveness and success. But there does not appear to be from
an organizational structure perspective enough movement forward in becoming a
data-centric organization, or to establishing a CDO with enterprise responsibility for the
strategic leverage, optimization, and management of data.
There is an overriding emphasis today on Big Data analytics and Big Data strategies. Smart
organizations recognize that an overarching data strategy and strong foundational
data management processes increase the likelihood of success with Big Data analytics.
It is clear from these survey results that the majority believe that organizations can
benefit by having their data assets cared for in the same manner that their financial
assets are cared for, by comparable chief officers. However, not all agree with the
specifics of how to achieve this. It is clearly going to be more difficult than just assigning
an individual to that role.
It is equally clear that the much-discussed data scientist will not be able to operate
at the c-level, and that few have the requisite background to achieve this. Further
concerns arise from the lack of staff and budget for these roles. Assigning a person to
the task is an important but insufficient step.
The professional sentiments of the survey participants reflect this lack of agreement on
this role within the industry.
My own position is clear, as evidenced by my co-authored book The Case for the CDO:
Recasting the C-Suite to Leverage Your Most Valuable Asset. Data is an organizations
sole non-depreciating, non-depleting, durable, strategic asset. If we dont care for
data with the same professionalism as we care for our other assets, we cant hope to
really begin to deliver on the promise of big or even little data.

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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND DEMOGRAPHICS

In February 2013, Data Blueprint and DATAVERSITY surveyed a wide spectrum of IT
management professionals as to how CDOs were structured in their organization. We
received 114 responses in 30 days.
70% of the respondents worked directly with data (35% were information architects, 25%
governed information; 10% were BI-focused). The remainder of the respondents included
application development (3.5%), executive management (11%), IT management
(6.2%), marketing/scientific research (3.6%), and strategy (4.4%).
More than two-thirds of the responses were from organizations with $500 million or larger
in annual revenue; 75% had more than 1,000 employees.
While a variety of industries were represented, the top three comprised more than 40%
of the responses (insurance 18%; government 12%; finance 12%). Of the 60% remaining,
no one industry comprised more than 6%.
Approximately 25% of the respondents include helpful comments that provided much
context (including many mini-essays) for the numbers presented.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to everyone who participated in our survey. Your time, written responses,
and input are greatly appreciated.
If you have questions in the meantime, please feel free to contact us:
Peter Aiken, Ph.D.
Email: paiken@datablueprint.com
Twitter: @paiken

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10124 W. Broad Street, Suite C

Glen Allen, Virginia 23060
Phone 804.521.4056

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