Pragmatic data organization leadership | Olalekan Elesin | LeadDev Berlin 2023

Data is referred to as the new oil, following the Forbes article in 2019, and strategic differentiator for competitive advantage for businesses.
However, organizations, including digital natives, find it difficult to leverage one of their most valuable assets to the fullest. As a result, there is a never ending blame-game from business executives to data teams to product teams. Furthermore, as businesses grow, the need for data to drive business decisions as well as integrating analytics/AI into technology products to delight customers and stay competitive increases. So, how might data organizations collaborate with software teams to deliver customer value and strategic impact for organizations?
In this talk, we will look at how a data team was led through a difficult reorganization to deliver company-wide impact and customer value. We will cover common pitfalls in setting up data organizations and how to lead data organizations to success based on:
Collaboration with engineering & product organization
Faster analytics delivery cycles
Customer value and strategic company impact, not leaving out people development.
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