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COVID-19 has radically altered most aspects of our social worlds and the way we do business. One of the largest impacts to organizations has gone on mostly unseen to the outside world. Companies have been quickly altering the way they manage the keys to their data kingdoms to maximize their data’s value to survive and compete.

We missed it, again. But, could we have seen it, even with advancements in data analytics? Many people have referred to COVID-19 as an unexpected black swan event, after Nassim Taleb's famous book, which I’m rereadinging as I write this post. A black swan is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences.

Timely, accurate and trusted data has never been more important than it is now during this pandemic. Since late summer, many areas across the UK have had more stringent restrictions imposed to reflect the growing number of cases. Similarly, Test and Trace uses information on who we’ve been in contact with to provide guidance for when we should self-isolate, which in turn helps us personally manage the risk to those around us.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a bright light on the need for flexible and engaging leadership. Most of the recent leadership-themed articles focus on how to bridge the remote-only workplace relationship gap, the importance of increased engagement and empathy, and the need to provide technology that empowers and provides a more equitable work/life balance.

In recent years, organizations have been making massive investments in data analytics to transform their growing volume of data into actionable insights to inform decision-making. However, the pursuit of becoming data-driven has uncovered challenges earlier in the data pipeline that are preventing companies from reaping all the benefits from their data.

The CDO role has been rapidly evolving over the past few years – from governance leader to data science and AI expert to digital transformation guru. And, with this change, has come a shift from a back-office focus to a focus on achieving measurable results required by the C-suite.

When evaluating your approach to analytics and BI, a common comparison is Qlik vs. Tableau. Consistently, when we have that conversation, there are some sharp distinctions that come to the fore in terms of capabilities, vision and cost.