A NEW BREED

on the cover
‘If you empower
people, they’re very
passionate about
the capabilities
they have, and they
can do more under
their own steam’
Capgemini, Gratton built apprenticebased
‘data science factories’ that
took on graduates and built
relationships with universities
and apprenticeship schemes to
encourage big data skills, effectively
nurturing cultural attitudes to data
right from the ground up.
‘At Capgemini, one of the biggest
gaps I saw was predictive modelling,
or statistical modelling through
technology like SAS,’ says Gratton.
‘Capgemini already had a scheme set
up using traditional technologies,
so it was all about cross-training
technology we were not used to.’
It took about 18 months to set up,
but, through the data science factory
at Capgemini, Gratton trained a
number of apprentices and put
them through projects in the credit
card industry.
‘We found from this that if you
empower people, they’re very
passionate about the capabilities
they have, and they can do more
under their own steam,’ he says.
‘They look after the data and they
govern it better – it’s a selffulfilment
cycle really.’
The new digerati
The term ‘digital’ is increasingly
being used as a catch-all for anything
to do with technology. But as Gratton
argues, it comes down to far more
than just taking physical processes
and putting them on mobile phones
or tablets.
At Zurich, one if his core focuses
is changing the speed at which
people interact with each other,
and how much employees know
about customers at each point they
interact with them.
‘Whether you’re a call centre
operative or broker dealing with
a claim, the more information
you have about that company or
individual, the more likely you are
to produce a better service,’ he says.
‘For such a traditional industry, it’s
quite a change to go through.’
Meanwhile, Gratton hopes that
more traditional and repetitive
tasks, such as duplicating
information across numerous
applications, will soon be replaced
by software robots.
While artificial intelligence and
cognitive computing technologies
such as IBM’s Watson are supporting
diagnoses in the medical industry,
they could also intelligently collate
and process information about
insurance – allowing the right
human decision to be made at the
right point.
So with employees and robots
taking data science under their wing,
where does it ultimately leave those
such as Gratton and the role of the
CDO in the insurance sector?
‘In ten years’ time the role may still
be there,’ he says, ‘but the world is
changing. There’s an argument that
says the CIO could do what the CDO
is doing, and ten years from now
they probably could.
‘But the current breed of CIO tends
to be focused on the IT function,
big-bang projects and simplifying
technology, whereas the CDO right
now is about agile, quick value
creation – driving innovation
around data through lots of pilots.’
As everyone in a business evolves
to become more data-oriented
and fluent in using data in their
everyday processes, Gratton believes
the CDO is likely to become part of
the fabric of the organisation, and
may not be a role in its own right.
‘There’s no reason why it couldn’t
go to the COO or somewhere else,
but what’s for certain is that whoever
is in charge of these functions, they
will sit at board level.’
20 information-age.com September 15