Introduction

This chapter is aimed at all parts of our audience: the CDO, the data community, C-Suite colleagues, business owners and recruiters. So the ‘you’ in this chapter is everyone. We put forward some scenarios that many of you will recognise and some symptoms to look for. Not all CDOs will be successful, so we try to get to the bottom of why some will fail and, linked to this, how to measure the success of a CDO. Perhaps most importantly, once an organisation has realised that it needs a CDO and has recruited, how do you get the best out of the CDO? We believe that this chapter is ever more relevant now in 2020. The case for the CDO is now emphatic, and an increasing number of organisations have appointed a CDO over the past three years; but even where this has happened the question still gets asked ‘do we need a CDO?’ Understanding who is asking this question and why is now very important. Even though more CDOs are being appointed there are some organisations which are still to get there. Why is this and what will be the consequences?

Why organisations need a CDO

So why does any organisation need a CDO? If a CDO is hired at the right level, it will be a big investment and they aren't going to just come on their own; they will bring a team of some sort, even sourced from positions within the organisation, they will cause disruption and potentially add cost, and the company got along just fine without one before. Right? Some of the core capabilities required in a CDO team are not present in many organisations. This is especially true of the senior roles, such as head of DataOps, head of data governance, chief data architect. Many of the other functions and more hands-on roles may well be filled in the team by the redeployment of existing data-literate people or up-skilling existing staff. A CDO who is tasked to leverage insight and value from the data will also wish to recruit data scientists.