10 Ways CDOs Can Succeed in Forging a Data-

Driven Organization
Published: 22 May 2019 ID: G00378249

Analyst(s): Mike Rollings, Alan D. Duncan, Valerie Logan

Data and analytics leaders face 10 common issues that, if ignored or

minimized, can undermine their effectiveness. Applying these best practices
will improve the likelihood of success for their role and for critical information
initiatives.

Key Challenges
■ Data and analytics leaders may not recognize that the definition of data and analytics success is
to become an enterprise engine of value creation.
■ Culture and data literacy are the top two roadblocks for data and analytics leaders.
■ “Information as an asset” is a popular idea, but a scarcity of asset management standards,
unfamiliarity with data monetization and a lack of experience prevents data and analytics
leaders from driving value from data.

Recommendations
To achieve success in their role, data and analytics leaders, including chief data officers, must:

■ Establish clarity for the CDO’s role and purpose by defining and advocating the role’s vision,
priorities and scope.
■ Transform their enterprise by prioritizing cultural change and fostering a data-driven orientation.
■ Apply asset management disciplines to select information assets and borrow ideas from other
industries and competitors to monetize their data.
■ Apply all of these 10 best practices to aid the data-driven transformation of their enterprise.

Table of Contents

Strategic Planning Assumptions............................................................................................................. 2

Introduction............................................................................................................................................ 2
 Analysis.................................................................................................................................................. 3
Define the Vision, Priorities and Scope of Your CDO Role................................................................. 3
Forge a Partnership With Your CIO................................................................................................... 5
Build a Data-Driven Enterprise, Not a Department............................................................................ 6
Prioritize Cultural Change and Foster a Data-Driven Orientation........................................................7
Focus Your Organization on Treating Information as a Business Asset............................................ 10
Expand Your Information Monetization Options...............................................................................11
Measure Information So You Can Value It....................................................................................... 13
Adapt Information Innovation Ideas From Others............................................................................ 16
Leverage Alternative External Data Sources....................................................................................16
Deal With Risk by Facing Information Ethics Head-On.................................................................... 17
Gartner Recommended Reading.......................................................................................................... 18

List of Figures

Figure 1. Balance Tactical and Strategic Priorities in Your Operating Model.............................................4

Figure 2. Develop Essential Data-Driven Competencies.......................................................................... 7
Figure 3. CDOs Identify “Data-Drive Culture” as Critical to Success........................................................ 8
Figure 4. Monetize Information by Leveraging Underutilized Methods................................................... 11
Figure 5. Use of Information Value Metrics Is Very Limited.....................................................................14
Figure 6. Compute Different Kinds of Information Value With These Six Models.................................... 15

Strategic Planning Assumptions

By 2022, 90% of corporate strategies will explicitly mention information as a critical enterprise
asset, and analytics as an essential competency.

By 2022, 30% of CDOs will partner with their CFO to formally value the organization’s information
assets for improved information management and benefits.

By 2023, data literacy will become an explicit and necessary driver of business value, demonstrated
by its formal inclusion in over 80% of data and analytics strategies and change management
programs.

Introduction
The chief data officer’s (CDO’s) mission has shifted from risk mitigation to creating business value
with data assets. “Enhance data quality, reliability and access,” “Enhance analytical decision

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 making” and “Drive business or product innovation” are the top three business expectations for the
1
data and analytics team in Gartner’s most-recent CDO study. Although appointment as a CDO
does not guarantee success, we offer 10 best practices you can apply to transform your enterprise
into a data-driven organization.

Analysis
Define the Vision, Priorities and Scope of Your CDO Role
For many organizations, the CDO role is still new, untested and somewhat amorphous. In these
circumstances, the scope, priorities and responsibilities of the CDO’s role can quickly become
inflated. It seems that once a CDO is hired, regardless of how small the associated budget,
resources and team, every data problem that crops up, however minor, seems to fall into their lap.

The problem of defining and aligning priorities, while leaving a buffer zone of flexibility for new
things that come up, is a common one for almost any leadership role. To achieve clarity of role and
purpose CDOs should act quickly and decisively to determine the data-driven ambitions of the
enterprise, set their scope and actively communicate their role. There’s no absolute right or wrong
to this determination. The critical issue is, don’t leave these items up for grabs:

■ Take the lead in defining your enterprise’s data-driven ambitions and the necessary governance
changes to achieve these.
■ Craft a bold, inspiring mission statement, and then build programs that deliver indisputable
value.
■ Establish your CDO role and shape the basic perceptions that others will associate with your
subsequent plans and actions.
■ Proper preparation, assessment, planning, acting, measuring and, above all, communication
can greatly enhance your chances of success.
■ Learn how to create the influence models that identify your target audiences, how to reach
them, the prescriptions to advance your objectives and the metrics to measure your success in
reaching them.
■ Avoid overemphasis on tactical actions and decisions. Our recent CDO survey highlights this
potential blind spot for CDOs. The tactical bias is evident in the responses regarding the
organization’s operating model — where doing is more of a focus than those elements that build
organizational muscle for the future (see Figure 1).

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 Figure 1. Balance Tactical and Strategic Priorities in Your Operating Model

CDOs should strive to balance strategic and tactical activities. Being driven by business goals is
important, but most CDOs’ operating models skew toward being a service center rather than
cultivating data-driven competencies across the enterprise. The lack of attention to training and
coaching, to self-sufficiency and to consultative engagement reflects an obsession with short-term
achievements and a never-ending thirst for delivery. It is essential to nail down the scope and
purpose of your role as soon as possible, but expect them to change over time. Set and agree on
some concrete starting expectations and make these a part of your influence plan for all
stakeholders.

Further reading:

■ “Dare to Dream! Give Your Data and Analytics Programs a Mission to Transform Business and
Improve the World”
■ “Start Your Data and Analytics Strategy With a Clear Value Proposition”
■ “The Chief Data Officer’s First 100 Days”
■ “How Data and Analytics Leaders Can Create Effective Influence and Communication
Strategies”

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 Forge a Partnership With Your CIO
As a CDO, you are mostly likely to encounter a CIO who enthusiastically welcomes the introduction
of your role. But some CIOs see this new role as a direct affront, if not a threat to their dominion,
and a “watering down” of their responsibilities and influence. “Information” is the CIO’s “middle
name,” but they are rarely able to give enterprise information the attention it deserves.

In talks with Gartner clients, many CIOs express anxiety over the CDO role. This anxiety frequently
relates to reporting relationships. Most CIOs ask if the top data and analytics leader must report
outside IT. The answer is “no,” and they need not be concerned even if they do. This introspection
is usually a sign that the CIO knows the organization needs to do something different, and they want
to do what is best. That said, the CDO role is most often a business-reporting role.

In Gartner’s 2018 CDO Survey, 49% of respondents reported to a top business executive (CEO,
COO, CFO). This was up from 45% in 2016 and 48% in 2017. Likewise, 22% of respondents in
2
2018 reported to a top IT executive (CIO, CTO); down from 23% in 2017. A business-reporting
CDO may create uneasiness for an established CIO, but it may be the only way to show the
importance of data and analytics.

In many larger enterprises — and those of all sizes within certain sectors — the CIO role has
become extremely difficult and complex. When the CIO is responsible for the infrastructure,
innovation and leadership that run digital businesses, it is more than a full-time job. Where there is a
lot of regulation, legislation and even litigation, the CIO may lack the time or expertise to function as
the head of information governance or that of monetizing and exploiting data. Such CIOs are more
likely to appreciate a CDO. Accordingly, a CDO must understand the immense pressures on the
CIO.

From an enterprise perspective, CDOs and CIOs have many shared executive relationships, and the
success criteria for each role indicates that one cannot succeed without the other. As a CDO, don’t
hesitate to seek coaching or mentoring on relationship building. Again, clearly defining your role
and, especially, having the CIO involved in this process can help.

The concerns of top CDOs are very similar to those of top CIOs — innovation, digital transformation
and business strategy are the three most-cited non-IT responsibilities that top CIOs have in addition
to their IT responsibilities. An enterprise cannot succeed in these endeavors without the teamwork
of these key executives. Those that compete against each other only damage other critical
executive relationships and inhibit everyone’s ability to achieve the desired enterprise outcomes.

As your organization’s top data and analytics leader, you should create a strong working relationship
with the CIO. Understand their goals and how they are measured and engage them in areas that
drive mutual success. The CIO should do likewise.

Further reading:

■ “Improving the Working Relationship Between the Chief Data Officer and the Chief Information
Officer”

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 ■ “CDO Reporting Relationships Can Make or Break Your Information Management Program”

Build a Data-Driven Enterprise, Not a Department

Today, the potential for data-driven business strategies and information products is greater than
ever. For some enterprises, data and analytics has become a primary driver of their business
strategy. It is a part of everything they do. Genuinely data-driven enterprises ask themselves
different questions, such as:

“With this data, or this type of insight, how could we fundamentally change the value
propositions for our customers?”

“How can we deliver new value propositions?”

Conceiving and answering these types of questions requires an expanded set of data and analytics
competencies. It is not just the data and analytics department, but the entire enterprise that gets
involved. Achieving data and analytics success over your competitors requires a much more
expansive role for data and analytics in business value generation, and therefore in everything your
organization does.

This expansive approach fundamentally changes the data and analytics team’s orientation and
work:

■ It demands building new enterprise competencies.

■ It broadens out the purpose of the office of the CDO from functioning solely as a service center
that responds to requests.
■ It expands the role to being a problem-solving collaborator with an enterprise perspective about
data and analytics, building communities of practice and developing competencies (see Figure
2).

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 Figure 2. Develop Essential Data-Driven Competencies

CDOs should deliberately orchestrate the creation of competencies across the enterprise, ensure
the consistency of distributed practices and build enterprise abilities that underlie future success.

Further reading:

■ “Build a Data-Driven Enterprise”

■ “Survey Analysis: Where to Target Your Data and Analytics Investments to Improve Business
Value”
■ “The 30 Capabilities That Your Analytics Center of Excellence May Be Lacking”
■ “5 Pitfalls to Avoid When Designing an Effective Data and Analytics Organization”

Prioritize Cultural Change and Foster a Data-Driven Orientation

The importance of a data-driven culture is shown in Gartner’s fourth annual CDO survey, which
found that attending to a data-driven culture is, as in past years, most critical to CDO success (see
Figure 3).

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 Figure 3. CDOs Identify “Data-Drive Culture” as Critical to Success

Some describe culture as “the collective conversations of an enterprise.” As a result, one cannot
change the behaviors and belief systems of an enterprise without changing the conversations within
it. The CDO is the source of leadership for fostering a data-driven business. But this role achieves
its goals far more by influence than control. In fact, you can think of the CDO as the “chief data
influencer,” working steadily to enable the organization to become increasingly data-driven in its
decision making and operations, and in the behaviors of its people. This means that CDOs must
engage with business and IT stakeholders at a human level, taking into account their motivations,

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 desires and even emotions (see “How Data and Analytics Leaders Must Address Emotional Impacts
to Foster a Data-Driven Culture”). In this way, the human context dovetails with the business
context of digital transformation, business outcomes and workforce digital dexterity. CDOs should
lead in three key areas of influence:

■ Demonstrating the business value of data.

■ Managing the effects on organizational culture of a data-driven approach to business.
■ Confronting the ethical implications of data and analytics.

Significant cultural change is necessary to creating a data-driven organization. Therefore, CDOs

must consciously address and reinforce the desire, attitude and behaviors that are needed to
become a data-driven organization. Determining how to get started with a data-driven change
management campaign is a vital challenge for CDOs and other data and analytics leaders
committed to creating a data-driven culture.

Data literacy is an essential part of a data-driven culture. An information language barrier exists
across business units and IT functions, rooted in ineffective communication across a range of
stakeholders. As a result, data and analytics leaders, including CDOs, struggle to get their message
across and to fully utilize key information assets. The increasingly pervasive nature of data makes it
crucial for all employees to learn to “speak data” — to become data literate (see “Information as a
Second Language: Enabling Data Literacy for Digital Society”).

Data literacy is the ability to read, write and communicate data

in context. This includes an understanding of data sources and
constructs, analytical methods and techniques applied, and the
ability to describe the use case, the application and the
resulting value.

In conjunction with attention to the data-driven culture, addressing better data literacy enables the
skills, knowledge and aptitudes required to work with, interpret and act upon data (see “Getting
Started With Data Literacy and Information as a Second Language: A Gartner Trend Insight
Report”). Speaking a common data language results in:

■ Business leaders internalizing the expectation that data assets exist to be shared
■ Frontline associates taking responsibility for ensuring quality data
■ Stakeholders collaborating in conceiving and creating data-intense solutions
■ Employees “conversing” with data — using self-service tools — to discover new insights and
opportunities

Further reading:

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 ■ “How Chief Data Officers Show Leadership in Influencing the Data-Driven Culture”
■ “How to Foster a Data-Driven Culture and Stakeholder Relationships That Last”
■ “How Data and Analytics Leaders Must Address Emotional Impacts to Foster a Data-Driven
Culture”
■ “Data-Driven Decision Making: The Role of Emotional Intelligence”

Focus Your Organization on Treating Information as a Business Asset

Today, accountants don’t recognize information as an asset comparable to auto parts or
pharmaceutical ingredients, or stock certificates. Yet, information clearly meets the core definition of
an asset: something that is owned and controlled by an entity, can be converted to cash and
generates what accountants call “probable future economic benefit.” Information also meets the
standard litmus test for a specific type of asset: an intangible asset.

CDOs can start treating information as an asset by leveraging established asset management
practices. These practices can draw on various well-known IT and business disciplines. They offer
guidance to help organizations successfully embrace a new, transformative view of data for the
digital business. CDOs should identify these existing disciplines and practices within their
organizations and begin applying them to information.

Both IT and the business offer an array of relevant asset classes:

■ IT asset classes — Including management of IT assets and/or services; records information

management; enterprise content management; knowledge management; library science.
■ Business asset classes — Physical assets; financial assets; concepts related to the duties of
the CFO; human capital management; other intangible assets, such as intellectual property.

Treating data and analytics as assets does not mean identifying asset owners. One practice that
should be abandoned is the notion of a “data owner.” This impedes exploiting information assets by
encouraging data hoarding and silos, rather than data sharing and availability. Without the alternate
concepts of information accountability and responsibility, the illusion perpetuates that whoever is
designated as the “owner” has final say over its usage. More importantly, it sets the wrong tone
about information as something other than an enterprise asset. CDOs are, increasingly, challenging
these attitudes.

The idea of a “data trustee” or “sponsor” establishes information as a shared resource with shared
responsibility. Information treated as a true enterprise asset, rather than a hoarded resource, can
generate more value and better amortize the costs of generating, collecting, storing and securing it.

“Data ownership” has a second meaning outside the organization — that of legal property.
Unfortunately, there is little by way of legal precedent for recognizing information as property.
Instead, CDOs, along with their organizations’ legal teams, should focus on ensuring, establishing,
controlling and taking advantage of contractual rights to information.

Further reading:

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 ■ “Don’t Just Talk About Information as a Strategic Asset, Manage It Like One!”
■ “Generally Accepted Information Principles for Improved Information Asset Management”
■ “Maverick* Research: The Birth of Infonomics, the New Economics of Information”

Expand Your Information Monetization Options

Treating information as the true business asset it is opens new possibilities for using it to drive
economic value. This range of possibilities is “monetization” — generating a range of economic
benefits from available information assets.

Our 2018 CDO survey identified how CDOs are driving business benefits with information, now and
in the future. Yet the top three methods still remain inwardly focused on process improvement and
enhanced or new offerings. CDOs should adopt underutilized methods to drive more external value
from the available information assets (see Figure 4).

Figure 4. Monetize Information by Leveraging Underutilized Methods

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 Data monetization goes beyond just selling or licensing data. Infonomics research starts with the
assumption that information is an economic asset — despite what the accountants say — and
CDOs and other data and analytics leaders should leverage this asset beyond operations and
decision making. By doing so, CDOs create a powerful value convergence of CDO-led information
innovation, CIO-led technology innovation, and business-leader-driven process or business-model
innovation.

As a business asset, information has economic value that organizations can “turn into money” in
two ways:

■ Direct monetization is about a transaction. This is what most people think about when they
consider monetizing data. Transactions take many forms. Examples include:
■ Bartering/trading with information
■ Creating information-enhanced products or services
■ Selling raw data through brokers
■ Offering data/report subscriptions

For example, in the retail industry companies are licensing their point of sale (POS) and other data
to their consumer packaged goods (CPG) partners, and telcos are trading data with suppliers and
partners for goods, services or favorable contract terms.

■ Indirect monetization is about optimizing the business. It entails using information internally
to improve a process or product in a way that results in measurable outcomes, such as income
growth or cost savings. Examples include:
■ Improving operational efficiencies
■ Developing new products or markets
■ Building and solidifying partner relationships
■ Publishing branded indexes

For example, aerospace and other defense-related industry sectors in particular are extremely
conscious about issues leading to cost overruns and program delays. Delays can result in milestone
payments, withholding of payment, write-offs, debookings and fewer contract awards. Moving from
trailing indicators to leading indicators can generate tremendous value by avoiding situations that
degrade performance. Such indirect monetization improvements can avoid potential losses in the
hundreds of millions of dollars, reduce business risks and bring solutions to market faster.

Organizations should evaluate and experiment with both direct and indirect approaches in order to
maximize their monetization options and opportunities. At the same time, the CDO needs to be the
voice of reason. You should apply a feasibility checklist to answer questions related to the
practicality, marketability, scalability and economy, along with the legal, technological, ethical and
ecological ramifications of new ideas for innovating with information.

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 The important aspect of indirect monetization is to measure the accrued economic benefits. Without
this measurement it is, at best, difficult to claim that data is in fact being monetized.

Further reading:

■ “Applied Infonomics: Seven Steps to Monetize Available Information Assets”

■ “Start Monetizing Data and Analytics With Your Service Provider Now”
■ “Essential Product Management Practices to Monetize Data and Analytics Assets”
■ “Applied Infonomics: How CIOs in Midsize Enterprises Can Monetize Their Data”

Measure Information So You Can Value It

Measuring the accrued or potential economic benefits of information is vital. Without this
measurement, CDOs find it difficult, at best, to plan for data monetization or even demonstrate that
it’s taking place. Measuring or assigning value to data is a complex task, but CDOs need to heed an
old adage “You can’t manage what you don’t measure,” and combine it with a new one: “You can’t
monetize what you don’t manage.”

Unfortunately, according to our recent CDO survey, most organizations we surveyed are not
measuring their information assets in any way (see Figure 5). This certainly doesn’t bode well for
their ability to manage or monetize information as effectively as it can and should be.

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 Figure 5. Use of Information Value Metrics Is Very Limited

To help data and analytics leaders, Gartner has developed six information valuation models that use
different assumptions to compute different types of information value (see Figure 6). These include
three foundational and three financial measures:

■ The foundational models consider the quality-related aspects of information, or its impact on
alternative performance indicators.
■ The financial models measure value in monetary terms by adapting the accepted methods for
valuing traditional assets. (When adopting financial models, solicit the support and involvement
of finance.)

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 Figure 6. Compute Different Kinds of Information Value With These Six Models

CDOs can use these results to improve data collection, management and deployment. In such
cases, the measure itself is not as meaningful as:

■ The delta between the realized and potential value of an information asset
■ The capability of tracking the appreciation or depreciation of an information asset’s value over
time

There are models for various needs and circumstances. Selecting which to use and when to use
them depends on your objectives. Some are leading indicators; some are trailing indicators. Some
are oriented toward improvements in enterprise information management (EIM); some toward
assessing information’s business benefits. You may find that it makes sense to apply several models
for the benefit of different IT, information, financial and business leaders — or for different kinds of
information assets.

Further reading:

■ “Applied Infonomics: Why and How to Measure the Value of Your Information Assets”
■ “How Chief Data Officers Can Succeed by Driving Measurable Business Value”
■ “Applied Infonomics: Use a Modern Data Catalog to Measure, Manage and Monetize
Information Supply Chains”

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 Adapt Information Innovation Ideas From Others
In talks with Gartner clients, CDOs and business leaders often admit that they have very little
awareness about what other organizations and industries are doing with data. But without such
awareness — and a basic curiosity — CDOs will not be innovators. They simply won’t know what
can be, and is being, done with information. Rarely is there an entirely new idea for using
information. But often there are opportunities to borrow ideas from others and expand on them, or
otherwise adapt them to your own business. This is a hard thing to do.

Don’t limit your curiosity to your own vertical industry, or you’ll be permanently in second place (or
worse!) as you constantly react to your rivals’ information initiatives. There are many great ideas
being tried and proven in other industries. Why not consider how to adopt and adapt them? You can
draw on professional and personal network contacts, various industry conferences and
publications.

Another key source is Gartner’s growing “Art of the Possible” library of examples of information and
analytics being used in high-value, innovative and transformative ways. It includes real-world use
cases for almost every industry, business function, geography, type of data and style of analytics.
Gartner clients can receive selections from this library via a written-response inquiry requesting
examples for particular areas of interest, such as customer experience or supply chain.

Further reading:

■ “Toolkit: Analytics Business Opportunities From Almost 200 Use Cases”

■ “Toolkit: How to Select and Prioritize AI Use Cases Using Real Domain and Industry Examples”

Leverage Alternative External Data Sources

Recently, the CDO of a major paint manufacturer admitted that no one at his company had thought
about reaching out to existing customers when their homes go on the market. The two key times
when people paint their homes’ interiors and exteriors are: (1) before they start showing their
existing home to prospective buyers, and (2) when they move into their new home. Home sales in
the U.S. and in many other countries are a matter of public record.

Sometimes, external data can be a tremendous driver of opportunity, yet many data and analytics
leaders and other business leaders fixate on their own internal information assets. This narrow focus
leaves them unaware of the many external data sources that they can combine with internal data to
achieve dramatic business outcomes. People switch banks and paint their houses before and/or
after they move. What are the customer milestones your organization could and should be
recognizing and taking advantage of?

Be relentlessly curious. External sources of information are proliferating through online government
databases, public records and the increasing spread of social networks. Anonymized data is now
being sold — and monetized — by other companies. Discover what information assets exist outside
your organization. Identify their potential value. Start curating them. Your organization certainly has
someone or even an entire department for procuring office supplies, but do you have anyone whose
job it is to procure “data supplies”?

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 It is at the intersection of multiple data sources that a CDO can help the organization broaden its
focus: from being fixated on hindsight-oriented descriptive analytics to higher-value diagnostic,
predictive or prescriptive analytics.

Further reading:

■ “Managing External Sources of Business Information: It Is Time for a Makeover”

■ “How to Adopt Open Data for Business Data and Analytics — And Why You Should”
■ “Toolkit: How to Evaluate the Quality of Data From Data Brokers or Other Third Parties”

Deal With Risk by Facing Information Ethics Head-On

CDOs may not be directly responsible for some of the ways in which their organization misuses,
abuses, mismanages or wrongly deploys information — but they will be called to account for these
missteps.

Technology innovation outpaces our ability to anticipate all the unintended negative consequences
that may arise from it. Data and analytics leaders must counteract this by creating a culture of data
ethics — influencing the data product life cycle and data and analytics strategy while enabling
business value.

CDOs have to maintain and advocate an orientation toward information ethics. They should plan on
working closely with the legal team, the public relations team, the CFO, CIO and other business
leaders to ensure that potential uses and management of information aren’t going to cause
problems. Remember, information is nondepletable, easily transportable and highly fungible. These
characteristics mean that information can be misused very easily compared with other assets.

Information regulations are exploding and it’s a murky, confused and uncertain regulatory
environment. A CDO needs to be keenly aware of overlapping, inconsistent laws, industry
regulations, company policies, and the policies of suppliers and partners with whom they do
business. CDOs of banks and government organizations, in particular, have said in client
discussions that the gaggle of overlapping levels of regulation creates direct and baffling
contradictions. For example, if they share data with someone requesting it, they’re out of
compliance due to one law, but if they don’t share it then they’re out of compliance with another
law.

Moreover, customers of different ages, backgrounds and geographies each have their own idea of
what constitutes the so-called “creepy line” when it comes to using the personal information that
organizations collect about their customers. This creepy line is fluid, dynamic and unpredictable.
But you need to know where it is: for each customer at any given point in time, for different
customers and partners, and in each of the localities in which you do business.

Further reading:

■ “Data Ethics Enables Business Value”

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 ■ “Digital Ethics, or How to Not Mess Up With Technology, 2017”
■ “Chief Data Officers Must Foster Trusted Relationships Using Data and Analytics”

Gartner Recommended Reading

Some documents may not be available as part of your current Gartner subscription.

“Write a Winning Business Case for a Chief Data Officer”

“The Chief Data Officer’s First 100 Days”

Evidence
1 Gartner’s 2018 Fourth Annual Chief Data Officer Study was conducted via an online survey from
September through December 2018, with 257 data and analytics leaders from across the world. The
purpose of the survey was to test a set of hypotheses about the CDO role and the office of the
CDO, in order to understand how this rapidly growing business function is maturing and the
resulting business impact.

Respondents were required to have the title of CDO or CAO, or to have the responsibilities of an
executive-level data and analytics (D&A) leader in their organization (in the case of organizations
without an official C-level D&A title). The survey sample was gleaned from a variety of sources
(including LinkedIn), with the greatest number coming from a Gartner-curated list of more than 2,000
CDOs and other high-level D&A leaders.

2 Gartner’s 2017 Third Annual Chief Data Officer survey was conducted by phone and online from
July through September 2017, with 287 CDOs, CAOs and other high-level data and analytics
leaders from across the world. In order to participate, respondents were required to have the title of
CDO or CAO, or to be a senior leader with responsibility for leading data and/or analytics in their
organization. The survey sample was gleaned from a variety of sources (included LinkedIn), with the
greatest number coming from a Gartner-curated list of almost 2,000 CDOs and other high-level data
and analytics leaders. For further details, see “Survey Analysis: Third Gartner CDO Survey — How
Chief Data Officers Are Driving Business Impact.”

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