Hub & Spoken.

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In this episode, Jason talks to Jose Murillo, the Chief Analytics Officer at Mexico’s 2nd largest bank, Banorte. They discuss the importance of experimenting with new ideas, rapidly evolving a data strategy and collaborating with academia.

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One Big Message

To get started with a new data plan, you don’t need to go all out with a strategy to create a big win. Create a low risk plan to demonstrate some small wins to key stakeholders. In turn, they will trust you to create bigger and better plans to help move their business objectives forward.

[01:14] About Jose’s journey from a PhD in Economics into the world of data

[05:16] Where Jose started when creating a data strategy that brought $4 billion in extra revenue

[10:11] Why you need to keep track of profit and revenue, and how your data directly impacts the bottom line to become a ‘profit-centre’ for the business

[16:42] How Jose’s team changed their data strategy to accommodate such rapid growth

[18:20] Creating strategic partnerships with academic faculty in order to help attract talent, provide insights into data research and propel data forward in academia

[23:00] How Jose has encouraged his data team to experiment and innovate with their own ideas

[26:14] What is the role of Chief Analytics Officer and how it differs to other data leadership roles

[31:07] Factors to take into consideration when experimenting with new ideas

[38:00] How to ratify the results of the data department within a business

Coming up with a plan

When coming up with a new data strategy you need to be able to mitigate as much risk as possible. Instead of focusing all of your efforts on coming up with a revenue-generating plan that may or may not work, look into improving what is already present. Assess what data is already being used by the company and create systems to streamline the process and transform it into more meaningful data. Getting small wins early can help to demonstrate how effective data strategies can be when done right.

Once you have demonstrated some wins to the business and have proven your team’s performance, you can adjust your data strategy to implement new strategies accordingly.

Ratifying your data teams results

When you are in a large organisation with many different moving parts, it can be difficult to attribute credit to single teams.

Being able to attribute certain results to teams requires high attention to detail. All forms of records should be monitored in comparison to the strategy. This can include financial records, sales statistics and every result attainable along the entire pipeline. By keeping track of everything that is happening along the pipeline you can calculate where your team’s strategy has contributed to the end result.

Experimenting with new ideas

Nurturing new ideas in data is a process of exploration and experimentation. It’s not so much about the technology, but more about how people can think outside the box to access various insights from data. Doing this gives them the freedom to come up with strategies that may have never been seen before.

We all have ideas that we want to try out. Leaders should encourage people within their team to come up with ideas and broaden their knowledge of data. While experimenting, be aware of how you can reduce the risk or create a safe simulation where people are allowed to think outside the box.

Collaborating with academia

Today, the expectations for collaboration with academia are high but are grossly underutilised. When we think of a successful company, we don’t just think about its bottom line—we also consider how it impacts society and gives back to communities. Collaboration has become an essential part of success as more companies want to have a positive impact on the world around them through their partnerships with universities.

These collaborative partnerships can work in many different ways. Firstly, they can have a great influence in translating academic research into the real world, giving academic institutions and businesses real insights into new theories and practices. Secondly, collaborating with academic institutions allows businesses to connect with young, promising talent.

To summarise

Every wildly successful plan started somewhere. In the end, it’s not about singular strategies that may or may not work. It’s about coming up with a successful overall plan that balances risk and reward for your company and its stakeholders.