(US and Canada)Tony Cyriac, Chief Data and Analytics Officer, Charles Schwab, speaks with Derek Strauss, Gavroshe Chairman, in a video interview about driving value for the business, expectation management, and measuring outcomes.

Cyriac states that his team’s mission is to accelerate business value by harnessing the power of data analytics and AI. He mentions that it is based on three pillars:

1. Measuring and scaling
2. Driving value
3. Enabling talent and a data-run culture.

Speaking on the data leader’s journey, Cyriac says that it starts with listening and learning before prescribing anything. He encourages data leaders to have conversations with as many business leaders as possible in the first ninety days of the job.

Cyriac stresses that data leaders need to offer something that establishes their credibility since business stakeholders are open to dialogue and are hungry for outcomes. He prescribes four key steps to the process:

1. Understanding foundational problems and offering help.
2. Understanding business priorities and areas for partnering.
3. Forming your own understanding based on the conversations and deciding on things to do to address issues in the first two buckets.
4. Exploring the art of the possible with business leaders.

According to Cyriac, once the initial conversations lead to something concrete, it can be taken to a larger group within the organization, and then eventually to creating a roadmap.

From Cyriac’s standpoint, the second part of this journey is value identification and creating a structure that describes the value it drives against the outcomes. He mentions that four or five outcomes can be chosen, and the value can be assigned by working with the leaders and the parties. Once this is in place, the team can proceed toward execution, he says.

When asked about managing expectations through this transition, Cyriac suggests that one way is to map to things that have funding or are exploratory. The other way is to work towards things that can be in a now, next, or later frame that aligns with the investments.

Cyriac goes on to speak about measuring value. He says that it can be done at two levels:

1. At a project level where every company has its own methodology for making an ROI statement.
2. Looking at it from large initiatives with multiple projects, which has direct and indirect value.

As an example, Cyriac describes that the direct value could be the net new assets generated for the company from an initiative. The indirect way is where a particular initiative does not drive direct value, but it is part of a larger set of collective distinctions that moves the needle, he says. Cyriac adds that this approach can eventually be used to prioritize the work.

CDO Magazine thanks Tony Cyriac for contributing his thought leadership to our global community.

See more from Tony Cyriac

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