EDM Council Expands into Analytics, Reflecting Changing CDO Priorities

Data management industry association the EDM Council has released version 2.2 of its Data Management Capability Assessment Model (DCAM) framework for guiding industry participants’ data management projects, which incorporates coverage of analytics, reflecting increased responsibility for analytics among senior data management professionals.

On Tuesday, October 20, the EDM Council released version 2.2, which combines data and analytics under a common framework. Version 2.2 is the first update to DCAM since the launch of Version 2.1 in August last year, which introduced coverage of machine learning and artificial intelligence, data ethics, and business process design. The reasons for incorporating analytics into DCAM—which has thus far primarily tackled reference data and enterprise data management topics, whereas analytics traditionally corresponds to firms’ market data and technology functions—include the expanding role of chief data officers (CDOs) as data science and analytics become more prominent contributors to alpha-generating trading and investment strategies, and the reliance of effective analytics on data quality and good data management practices.

“The role of the chief data officer has grown bigger, which is something we’ve measured in our annual Global Benchmark survey. Three years ago, a CDO was responsible for core data management, but not analytics. But today, 52% of CDOs own their firms’ analytics function as well,” which is driving the emergence of a new function—the chief data and analytics officer (CDAO)—says Mike Meriton, co-founder and COO of the EDM Council. In addition, this year’s survey saw reporting lines for CDOs shift from reporting to chief information officers to now reporting to COOs, with around 15% of CDOs reporting directly to the CEO.

“The CDO role is moving higher and growing broader. The DCAM model has been around for about five years, but until now there has been no guidance on analytics to reflect that bigger role. So we have to revise our activities to reflect the growth of the role,” Meriton says.

In addition, while CDOs in the financial services sector generally have higher DCAM scores for data management and data quality, other industries generally perform better on analytics and supply chain analysis, Meriton says, adding that 70% of analytics projects fail because of issues directly attributable to data management.

So the EDM Council set up a DCAM Analytics Work Group, which began meeting in March with the aim of creating an analytics component within DCAM, comprising around 12 organizations representing a cross-section of the EDM Council’s membership, including representatives from HSBC, the London Stock Exchange, AstraZeneca, and the Federal Reserve of New York. The group created detailed content for each sub-capability, and established seven steps by which firms can incorporate analytics into their data management function—from formalizing and funding an analytics group, to aligning it with data architecture and data quality efforts, establishing an operational platform, and running models in production—and in June presented this to EDM Council members for review and feedback.

The Council has already begun training sessions for DCAM version 2.2, incorporating analytics as the eighth core pillar, along with other existing areas, such as data management strategy and business case, data and technology architecture, data quality management, and data governance. Among the training options, existing DCAM-accredited professionals can book a discounted “upgrade” rate of $495 for a two-day virtual training course covering all of version 2.2, or can enroll in a 90-minute session focusing only on the analytics component for $199. EMEA And Asia-Pacific training sessions for version 2.2 so far have attracted 59 attendees from 30 companies, and an Americas training session scheduled for November 5–6 already has 34 registrants from 14 companies.

Meriton says that, just as for the other elements of data management already covered by DCAM, the analytics framework will enable firms to assess their progress in developing an analytics function that is aligned to their data management strategy. According to the EDM Council’s research, more than 50% of firms utilize some kind of maturity model—with 63% of those using DCAM as part of a hybrid model with other maturity models—and so should be ready to adopt version 2.2. Meriton estimates between 20% and 30% of EDM Council members will be ready to adopt the analytics component.