techUK Data Strategy Series - Back to basics: How organisations can better leverage the value of data; Roundup

Speakers included;

• • Simon Persoff, Partner, Clifford Chance (Chair) 
  • Neil Taylor, Vice President Data Strategy, Mastercard 
  • Ronan Carrein, Partner, Better & Stronger  
  • Associate Professor Adam Berry, Deputy Director, UTS Data Science Institute 
  • Lauren Murphy, Associate, Clifford Chance

Too often, organisations over-value the risks or underestimate the benefits of data, this panel explored a range of different perspectives on building data strategies, of which covered topics can be summarised via;

What are the legal, interpretive, technical and marketing underpinnings of data?

• • Legal; Starting with this investigation, a critical question remains to assess what/how data can be perceived within businesses, and the regulatory, contractual, and common law proceedings around it. As such, how information is processed and utilised to facilitate specific use-cases, and their subsequent disclosures exist as the central point of interest for businesses’ understanding of data.  
     
  • Interpretive; Data’s objectivity also exists within specific contexts and conditions it’s set against, for example – digital marketing’s SEO datasets, and the decision-makings around website design and linkages between first-party datasets and human profiles.
     
  • Technical; Data can either be deliberately processed and stored or facilitate specific operational events to occur.
     
  • Marketing; The important distinction between First-Party, and Cookie-Based data-sets, as the latter involves information via browser sessions, of which must be connected to user-profiles in order to facilitate meaningful customer-targeted marketing campaigns.  

What specific business cases are there for data application?

• • Public services; There are numerous examples of data-sets being utilised for advancing decision-making and processes within key sectors including water and transport – this includes the prediction of infrastructure failures, particularly in water systems, which have led to significant budgeting savings caused by failure aversions.
     
  • Developing user dashboards; Developing intricate mappings of customer journeys can enable businesses to understand and predict key behaviour and activity which result in churning.
     
  • Mapping the journey of data development; 1. Understanding and targeting businesses’ customer base and operations, this must occur to formulate the grounding to future applications of data. 2. This insight must then follow with effective optimisation of marketing campaigns and understanding of transformation of cost-saving/efficiency processes. 3. Followed by the expansion in the customer base and key operational insights, the advancement in First-Party data via loyalty systems and cost-saving initiatives lead to the increased capacity and spending for further advancement in innovation including the application of AI/ML.

What are the challenges holding back businesses’ successful development of data strategy?

• • Maturing data systems without long-term strategy; Understandably, businesses remain keen to quickly advance their data capabilities, which affect their operations – however, without stringent considerations to strategy-making by key decision-makers, key challenges will lack effective solutions, including required interoperability between systems, data logging processes, and First-Party data procurement.
     
  • Underappreciation towards data’s secondary purpose; Businesses have been successful in building systems of data for a deliberate primary operational use-case, however – a challenge exists towards developing these datasets into functional assets which are integrated within multiple operational and investment programmes.    
     
  • Understanding wider strategic challenges which may hold back data’s benefits; Businesses’ central strategic focuses, and their relationship to applications of data may play a significant role within holding back the complete utilisation of datasets within the end-to-end service delivery, and operational processes.
     
  • Complex questions of data ownership within large scale infrastructural sectors; Key parts of the economy, including the energy sector, obtain business networks involving multiple stakeholders and customers which set challenging points of contention over how data is collected, stored and processes towards regulatory reporting.

How is Whitehall and its relevant policymakers helping businesses facilitate and develop data strategies?

• • Principles-based design of legislation; Within the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill’s (DPDI) reworking of the General Data Protection Regulation’s (GDPR) framework, the general approach within policymaking seeks to build businesses’ principles towards how customer data is used, and what specific products and services it relates to, which in turn – support the building-blocks for effective data strategy.
     
  • Enabling data governance; Required measures in undertaking mappings of risk and relevant controls help decision-makers within businesses’ build up the institutional norms of critically assessing the use of data, and its role within businesses.
     
  • Focus towards communicating the benefits of data-led business use-cases; Policymakers remain focused on facilitating businesses’ abilities to communicate the real-world positive effects on end-to-end users, for example – First Party data’s abilities to develop customer-centric advertisement of products.
     
  • Considerations to Third Party Provider and First Party data systems; Businesses with mature data strategies remain focused upon developing First Party data for the purposes of highly advanced loyalty programmes and customer behaviour mapping, as such – questions for policymakers exist towards a focus of helping businesses’ optimise these processes safely, securely and including minimal levels of customers’ personal data.

Bringing together experts within data strategies' various aspects of implementation and design within business models, the session outlined the key considerations for businesses and policymakers upon developing effective cross-sectoral collaboration.