RB: We’ve had a presence in South Africa since 2007 and have over 1 400 employees working for a number of customers - a large number of which are South Africans. We’re also very proud of our BBBEE Level-2 status. We have a significant Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program called Siyapha through which we sponsor libraries and computer centers in schools and communities, we also recruit university graduates as interns. We train these future professionals and deploy them to work not only here in South Africa but across Africa and the rest of the World.

CS: Tell us a bit about yourself. What is your background and how have you come to be the Practice Head of Wipro Analytics in South Africa?

RB: I studied electronics and communication engineering in India and went on to do my Masters at Wayne State University in Detroit (USA) in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

I joined Wipro in the US straight after completing my Masters which was in 2007 as an independent contractor. I started in the Business Intelligence (BI) field in March that year and have been with the company ever since. Joined Wipro permanently in 2010 after few other independent consulting gigs.

After a while I moved into account management in the US involved in client engagement, solutioning and architecture for BI and data warehousing. This spans about 8 years of my career after which I moved to South Africa as Head of Analytics, BI, DW and IM. I’m effectively the Practice Head for Africa in this areas for Wipro.

CS: You’ve been in South Africa for 14 months now. What is your assessment of the market in terms of data & analytics maturity?

RB: Compared to my experience in Western Europe, the US and Canada there is still a lot more to be done in South Africa with respect to the quality of data, data governance, advanced analytics and data visualisation.

There is a lot of movement and motivation to move data and analytics to a mature level but there is still a lot of work to do. I have seen a lot of traction in this area to close the gap and I think the time horizon to a decent level of maturity is relatively short.

CS: I think most people would accept that South African companies are little behind the markets you mention. But, what is driving the change?

RB: The biggest motivator for any company is to get insights into what is happening with their customers, their products and their market share. Having good quality data and strong analytics will help them understand their customers better and improve their product bundling. Which in turn will improve their market share, bottom-line etc. Ultimately companies want to target their customers more effectively.

CS: How would you rate the development of data & analytics in the country vs. the other countries you have worked in?

RB: Any growth market has the same challenges as developed markets with respect to using data as an asset and get value out of it. The lack of policies, standards and governance in emerging markets is a primary cause of this - companies just don’t understand the need to have these around their data.

But with more globalisation there will be more standardisation in the use of data and analytics which will propel the emerging markets into a similar level of maturity as the developed markets.

CS: Based on this, what are some of the fundamental changes you feel companies in South Africa need to make to drive more value out of their data?

RB: First and foremost there must be an improvement in the standards and quality of data. If companies don’t come to the realisation that data is an asset, and should be treated as such, they’re never going to get the full value out of it and will lose out to their competitors.

Secondly, companies need to empower business rather than empower IT - it’s what we call business-led IT. Involving business in more IT based decisions will increase synergy and ensure that solutions match what the business requires. This will ultimately provide enough capability to business to mine data and overlay advanced analytics. Which is not happening (enough) right now.

CS: I guess this is where a very important question arises. Where do you think the strategic value of the CDO lies? And, why do companies need one?

RB: Absolutely. The strategic value of the CDO is to bridge the gap between business and IT capabilities but with more of a slant on business requirements. The CDO needs to have the capability to use data and data visualisation to drive beneficial impact across the business. And this is done through insights and a thorough understanding of business requirements.

CS: What do you foresee as the next 3 big changes in the data & analytics market in South Africa?

RB: The first one is more involvement from the business into IT strategy. The CFO needs to work in collaboration with the CIO to generate more revenue/profit for the business.

The second, which links to the above, is the emergence of the CDO. This role will ensure that data is leveraged as an asset and for that they will need to have a proper data strategy. And in addition to this they need to be the link between business and IT.

The last one is on the IT side. Businesses need to shift to a digitised environment to capture the value of data and analytics across the business. Big data is going to be a big driver of change especially when structured data is coupled with unstructured data. Companies need the right platforms and solutions to access this.

By Craig Steward:

Craig Steward, Content Director for Corinium’s CDO and CAO Forums in Africa. His research is uncovering the challenges and opportunities that exist for CDOs and CAOs and the Forums will bring the market together to map the way forward for these important roles.