Do you need a chief data officer? How about a chief digital officer?

Data has been a hot topic of late - recent discussions around big data have caused many CIOs to reconsider how their company stores, processes and analyse data stores. Now, analyst firm Gartner is suggesting that you consider appointing a chief data officer - an executive whose primary responsibility is management of data itself.

This is because data is growing more important to the business, both as something that can help avoid risk and help add value to front-end offerings.

Nowadays, all sorts of data-based stuff goes on outside of the realm of CIO, like business units buying software directory from suppliers, without involving the IT department. As a consequence, there are employees outside of IT whose main job is to “manage and manipulate information to create business value”, Gartner says in a recent report: Why Your Organization Needs a Chief Data Officer (and Maybe a Chief Digital Officer, Too).

The chief data officer is a risk-focused role that’s intended to give the company oversight of those who manage information for compliance and risk, efficiency and business value. The role would make particular sense in an organisation that has great privacy, compliance, litigious and regulatory responsibilities, the firm says.

Often in such companies, multiple departments (like security or legal) or multiple senior managers (particular privacy, risk, infosec, governance or compliance managers or executives) have their own independent data management efforts.

These range from protecting data to gathering data for legal and regulatory purposes. These independent efforts often overlap or offer incomplete pictures of a company’s data. A chief data officer can act as a single point of accountability and oversight for those who are given these data-based tasks, reducing the wasted time, effort and money that comes from such overlap.

To see if your company could benefit from appointing such a position, Gartner recommends taking a survey of the job titles of your IT security, legal, compliance and related areas.

“If you have 10 or more people with some sort of compliance-, privacy-, risk- or litigation-focused tasks in their job descriptions, a clear case exists to create at least a managing function, if not a C-level title,” the firm says.

The digital age

Gartner says there’s also a need in some organisations for a chief digital officer - a role that focuses on using information and technology to add value to the front office. This may include creating digital channels to market and to customers.

It may also include embedding information and technology into the products and services the company offers. So, a chief digital officer might pioneer efforts to embed IT into the company’s physical products; the creation of information services that enhance the customer experience; or the creation of new products, like selling information that was previously regarded as a byproduct of other parts of the business.

A chief digital officer may also be useful to the chief marketing officer (CMO), whose day-to-day struggles can be alleviated by access to more company data, and better analysis of such data. The CIO typically doesn’t have a lot to offer the CMO in this regard, Gartner says, because of the “lack of connection” between the CIO’s and CMO’s separate agendas.

The prevalence of the CDO

Interestingly, the prevalence of both CDO titles is increasing, according to Gartner’s 2013 CEO and Senior Business Executive Survey. The research comprised web-based surveys of 333 LinkedIn members and 59 other surveys conducted via web, telephone or on paper. All respondents worked at organisations with more than US$250 million annual revenue.

According to the research, 6% of respondents had a chief data officer currently and 17% expected to have one in 2014, while 6% had a chief digital officer currently and 19% expected to have one in 2014.