S5 | Ep 21 | The Intersection of Organisational Culture, Operating Models and Transformation with Dan Robertson, Chief Data Officer at Bupa UK

In Episode 20, of Season 5 of Driven by Data: The Podcast, Kyle Winterbottom is joined by Dan Robertson, Chief Data & Analytics Officer at Bupa, where they discuss the relationship between organisational culture, operating models, change and transformation and delivering value, which includes;

• How doing a business degree fuelled an interest in using data to support decision-making.
• Why starting his career as a programmer made him realise that he wanted a different path.
• Being the inaugural CDO for multiple, large, complex organisations.
• Why your operating model holds more weight than any solution in changing an organisation.
• Why tuning in to organisational culture is the key to success for a transformational CDO.
• Getting an understand of company culture in the interview process.
• Why the amount of change required to embed that operating model defines the rockiness of the data strategy journey.
• Anchoring the implementation of change to the vision and purpose of the organisation.
• The importance of understanding ‘how things get done’.
• Why alignment on company purpose and vision impacts the ability to affect change.
• Tying incentives and objectives to that vision and purpose.
• Why your boss needs to ‘get it’ or be prepared to get it, so you don’t come unstuck when things get tough.
• Why the middle of the organisation will likely be the biggest cultural roadblock.
• Why federation is usually better for large organisations.
• The impact that maturity has on deciding on a centralised or federated model.
• Offering a service model to balance the pros and cons of operating models.
• Why the vision, purpose and north-star of the organisation is so important.
• The role of architecture of breaking down silos to unlock value.
• The common symptoms of what blockers to value creation are.
• The importance of Data Literacy both internally in D&A teams and in business teams.
• Why your team need to be able to explain the investment case to the exec that aligns to your purpose.  
• The link between expectations and the average tenure of the CDO.
• The 3 key inflection points as a transformational CDO.
• Why you need to be careful about choosing which value-based use case you start with.
• Presenting different data strategy options to the exec.
• Deciding whether you’re aiming to be more data-driven or want competitive advantage.
• Understanding the size of the possible prizes.

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