Tell us about your experience in working with the data analytics community at Cloudera? Why do you like working in this space?
Cindy: My team focuses on the industry business insights and associated use cases of data analytics. This is most rewarding as we have the opportunity to work on helping customers solve business problems and answer questions which they struggle with today.
Nadeem: The majority of our customers are enterprise customers who have very stringent requirements around Data Security, Governance and Multi-Cloud, we are the only company that can meet all these requirements as we have developed these features working very closely with the community and customers.
What are some of the common roadblocks you’ve helped your clients work through?
Cindy: One of the most common challenges is how do they create a culture within their organization focused on being insight & data driven. With this comes helping them to think about their information differently and not just data which they traditionally see in reports and dashboards.
Nadeem: Solving Hybrid, multi-cloud Enterprise Data Cloud use cases with complete security and governance on all major clouds as well as on-prem.
Where have you seen CDAOs deliver the most significant ROI within the business? (Or the most value to the business)
Cindy: When they start to explore data/information sources which they haven’t been able to explore in the past and when they are focused on analytical use cases which they haven’t been able to solve before.
Nadeem: We have seen CDAOs adding huge value in highly regulated complex enterprises when they able to understand their data assets and leverage these assets to make a data-driven decision. We have success stories across all major industries like Telco, FSI, Media, Retail, Pharma, Public Sector, etc.
What business challenges are CDAOs best positioned to solve for the C-suite? How can they show ROI for the business?
Cindy: By removing the complexity and usage of jargon terms regarding ML, AI, Big Data, we speak the same language as our clients and we help them answer questions needed to run and grow their business.
Nadeem: Data Governance, Data Taxonomy, Complex Compliance Regulations. These can help organizations save money. Data Monetization, ML/DL, Predictive and prescriptive analytics not only help save money but help make money.
How has the CDAO toolkit evolved and where does Cloudera fit within that?
Cindy: Cloudera provides the CDAO with data & analytics capabilities to manage, process and store its data in a multi-cloud, on-prem or hybrid environment while ensuring it is secure and governed based upon the company’s business strategy.
What project has been the most rewarding for your team this year?
Cindy: Having the opportunity to help multiple customers truly leverage their data to grow the business. The best is when a customer shares with other customers their successes as well as challenges. My team has really been able to ‘broker’ many of those conversations which makes it incredibly valuable and rewarding.
Nadeem: Helping enterprise customers adopt cloud/multi-cloud without any lock-in has been the most rewarding and successful for the team this year.
What keeps most Chief Data & Analytics Officers up at night?
Cindy: I’m sure there could be several items that might cause this, but top of mind is how do they stay focused on the priorities of the business and solve business analytical problems quicker and more effectively.
Nadeem: Data breach, Compliance, Data Taxonomy, Data Quality and lack of data security/control in legacy systems are some of the biggest challenges for CDAOs.
What major disruptions are on the horizon that CDAOs should start strategically preparing for now to stay ahead?
Cindy: Not sure it is a disruption, but rather what to be on the lookout for – is staying abreast of data privacy regulations across the globe and ensuring their organization is ready and can quickly respond.
Nadeem: Here are some of the major trends: Blockchain, RPA, Edge Computing, IOT, Real-time Context-based AI. Augmented Analytics/Decision making, Quantum computing, Smarter Chatbots.
The CDAO Community is still in its infancy compared to many other C-suite positions. What value do you feel a face to face peer experience like the Chief Data & Analytics Officers, Fall event bring to the community?
Cindy: The CDAO community benefits from the ability to come together and share lessons learned, to discuss way of how to stay ahead of changes in technologies.
Nadeem: CDAO Summit brings tremendous value to attendees, and we look forward to highlighting some real-life success stories with quantifiable ROI.
How does Cloudera’s solutions give your clients a competitive advantage?
Cindy: Cloudera gives clients a competitive advantage by enabling them to focus on their business & data strategy with an enterprise data cloud which works in any environment, addresses their current and future analytical workloads, and is secure and governed and built upon innovation in the open source community.
Nadeem: Cloudera is the only vendor who provides a multi-cloud, hybrid Edge to AI solution with complete security and governance with 0 lock-in, using 100% open sources technologies
For fun, tell us about the company culture at Cloudera and why people love to work with your team.
Cindy: People love to work with our team because we are focused on innovation, we think outside of the box, and we help clients solve problems today!
Nadeem: Our Core Values… “We are always moving forward”, “We believe in open”, “We are empathetic” and “We believe in We” and we truly live by these values which make this great place to work!