VIDEO | Cognata CDO: The People Make Everything Happen

(US and Canada) Gahl Berkooz, Cognata Chief Data Officer and President Americas, speaks with Mario Faria, Gartner VP, Research Board for Chief Data & Analytics Officers, about the challenges of a  founder mindset, the role of people, and the abundance vs. scarcity mindset debate.

According to Berkooz, the challenges of the founder mindset fall in three domains:

1. The product domain for bringing new products to market or new features for existing products.

2. The manufacturing domain or the industry-specific business processes that give an advantage.

3. The generic business processes.

Berkooz explains that it is challenging to be a CEO in all three areas at the same time, and lumping them all together makes it difficult to focus.

Sharing examples of how technology needs to change to support new business models, Berkooz points toward a digital product that aggregates information from vehicle telematics to provide a complete picture of the fuel consumption and CO2 production in the future, and to reconcile payments. This business model transformation allows users to manage key attributes of the fleet, he adds.

Similarly, Berkooz shares that Cognata is looking to monetize underused data collected from multiple automobile sources, like sensors, autonomous driving, and driver assist systems. He says a collection of multiple technologies are coming together.

Berkooz goes on to speak about how people make everything happen. He mentions that large,  traditional manufacturing companies consider the data, artificial intelligence and analytics people as foreigners since others are not used to having people like them around. This lack of consideration leads to stress. He adds that, while employees have to maintain high performance, they also need to stay mentally healthy and engaged.

Speaking on competing mindsets, Berkooz explains the need for an abundance mindset in the technology space, which has a multitude of opportunities, many more than people pursue, and urges organizations to not get caught in the scarcity mindset. He encourages professionals to keep an abundance mindset because it helps in staying creative.