Unleashing the power of data: ‘Zain Data Office’ established
Al-Gharabally: Zain fosters a business culture deeply rooted in robust governance policies
KUWAIT: Data has stormed the modern business landscape, presenting itself as an invaluable, decisive resource to today’s businesses and organizations. It has become the backbone that companies rely on when exploring new growth venues, as it not only helps understand market trends and customer behavior, but also gives the ability and sufficient knowledge to make more insightful decisions and achieve the best possible value.
Many who have insight into market trends see it as the ‘digital fuel’ behind new growth engines in companies. Today, setting up a data office is no longer an option with a fast-changing world driven by technology. The need for data offices emerged when companies needed a solution to organize and govern a method for using, storing, classifying, and transferring data inside and outside the organization. The rhythm in which businesses operate today exponentially increased with digital transformation, especially for those companies looking for growth, expansion, or even ensuring survival in a fiercely competitive market.
Today, successful enterprises are equipped with the tools and technologies needed to establish data offices to transform raw data into usable information that decision makers can rely on. Although the term “data office” is a relatively new one in some industries and markets, it is not the case for any aspiring company that realizes the value that data provides to stay on track when managing business strategies and growth plans.
The data office consists of a team that specializes in data management and analytics who work together as a single mind to transform data into a clear vision that can help direct the organization. This team uses the latest technology and tools built on artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and other evolving innovations to define, clean, and organize data and reveal patterns and trends companies usually do not notice in raw data. These findings can help make accurate and fast decisions to increase customer satisfaction, enhance the competitive edge, improve operational efficiency, and increase revenue. As data becomes an invaluable resource for businesses, Zain Kuwait is pioneering in starting the Data Governance Framework
Program, which sets the foundational blueprint of data management, practices, goals, responsibilities, technology, and culture that helps ensure usability of all data an enterprise collects.
The Data Governance Program is driven by the global association DAMA to set up standardized data frameworks, policies, procedures, and performance measures across the organization. Data governance leads to improved data quality, improved efficiency, decreased data management costs, and increased access to data for all stakeholders. The result is better decision making, business outcomes, and ROI. With the higher volume of data streaming into organizations today, and the variety of formats, both structured and unstructured, it is critical to get the right information at the right time to the right people to enable the entire organization to grow and capitalize on new opportunities. Zain understands the full- and long-term impact of data as a true and valued asset and treats it in a consistent manner through
a complete data governance strategy, so that it can use data more intelligently to empower its business for success and achieve its strategic goals.
While data governance initiatives can be driven by a desire to improve data quality and regulate its use, some believe the main drive behind it is achieving operational efficiency and customer satisfaction. As Zain puts innovation leadership at the heart of its business, it steadily follows a structured approach to data governance, fully understanding that relying on a comprehensive, data-driven workflow will help it identify new opportunities and maintain its competitiveness.
To realize this vision, Zain Kuwait Acting CEO Nawaf Al-Gharabally announced establishing the ‘Zain Data Office’ that operates a comprehensive program to strengthen the company’s commitment to data governance: “This office is a testament to Zain’s dedication to not only manage data effectively, but also ensure that data governance is deeply integrated into all aspects of the organization’s operations”.
Al-Gharabally continued: “To unleash the power of data and harness its full potential, Zain fostered and powered a data-driven culture through worldclass management of its data assets so that they are proactively and efficiently managed throughout the organization to ensure their accountability, availability, usability, auditability, trustworthiness, and security. The Zain Data Office aims to enhance data management by implementing effective governance policies, standardizing practices across departments, and significantly improving data quality and privacy.”
“We adopted the Zain Data Office initiative because we believe data governance management is a critical step towards meeting the regulatory compliance obligations under personal data protection legislation, cloud computing frameworks, and sector-specific obligations. Data governance will ensure that Zain can comply with any mandatory data privacy, storage, transfer and processing restrictions,” he added. Al-Gharabally further noted: “To build a holistic understanding of our performance and impact, we want to truly understand what impact we are having on our data citizens and service users and use data effectively to optimize and redesign our service offerings. This means moving beyond KPIs to a more complete understanding of performance.”
Nadia Al-Saif, Zain Kuwait Business Intelligence Director, said: “Zain ensures that all necessary security, legal, and ethical implications are considered in a consistent, timely, and proportionate way. We want to have a clear understanding of data usage, adopt the principle of sharing data ownership, and ensure that this is proportionate to the risk of using them. In addition, we also want officers at all levels in the organization to be data literate, and to be confident in managing and analyzing that data.” Al-Saif added: “We make sure every member of the organization understands the value of data and treat them as assets, and that’s why we’ve launched this initiative. It represents a significant step in Zain Kuwait’s journey towards becoming a data-driven enterprise, further solidifying its position as a leader in data governance. Right now, the Zain Kuwait Data Office is not just a functional entity; it is a reflection of the company’s commitment to leveraging data as a key driver of innovation, growth, and competitive advantage.”
Based on research conducted by various international firms, 20-35 percent of operating revenue is lost due to poor data quality (Total Information Quality Management). 30-40 percent of time is spent by data users searching for data if a clear inventory of data is not available (McKinsey). In addition, 40 percent of CEOs identify poor data integration as a key barrier to performing their regular operations (Deloitte). Over 12 percent of lost revenue could be the value of hidden costs of data redundancy (Experian Data Quality Research).
With this strategic initiative, Zain underscores the importance of data governance in the modern business landscape. The company is keen on ensuring data quality and reliability, which is instrumental in maintaining the integrity of data, and crucial for accurate and informed decision-making. The Data Governance Office helps protect sensitive information, something that is more important than ever today, and plays a key role in safeguarding data against threats and breaches. As the company’s operations grow, the complexity of managing data increases. The Zain Data Office helps streamline this process, ensuring easy access and effective data utilization to rapidly adapt to market changes and seize new opportunities, fostering agility in business decisions and strategies. The Office encourages the company to promote the goals of data governance as a culture where decisions are centered on data and its analysis.
Data governance goals
• Data governance is crucial to ensure regulatory compliance and protection of privacy
• Zain implements effective governance policies to unify practices and enhance data quality
• Data is the ‘digital fuel’ of the modern business landscape
• Global statistics show 20-35% of operating revenue is lost due to poor data quality
• 30-40% of time spent by data users when searching for data if clear inventory not available
• Enhance data quality in reports and analytics.
• Uphold customer personal data protection and privacy.
• Promote a data-driven culture: build a culture where decisions are grounded in data and analytics, leading to more strategic and effective outcomes.
• Meet the requirements of artificial intelligence: as AI tools rapidly grow, data governance plays a central role to ensure commitment and innovation.
• Comply with data legislation: keeping pace with changing legislation by taking a proactive approach to data governance, ensuring privacy and security when using data.
• Data Monetization: explore new venues for the commercial use of data, which leads to gaining valuable insights and implementing innovative projects.
Key positive impacts of implementing data management
Based on the survey conducted by various international firms
Decision making
• 70 percent faster, more informed decision-making – SnapLogic
• 23 percent higher accuracy level by business intelligence and analysis – IDC
• 64 percent improvement to current business operations – SnapLogic
Data growth
• According to the latest estimates, 328.77 million terabytes of data are created each day.
• It is estimated that 90 percent of the world’s data was generated in the last two years alone.
• In the space of 13 years, this figure has increased by an estimated 60x from just 2 zettabytes in 2010.
• The 120 zettabytes generated in 2023 is expected to increase by over 150% in 2025, hitting 181 zettabytes.
• Video is responsible for over half (53.72 percent) of all global data traffic. https://explodingtopics.com/blog/data-generated-per-day
Impact of data breaches
• Loss of trust and business: 65 percent lost trust in an organization due to data breach – Varonis
• 80 percent of consumers will defect from a business if their information is compromised in a breach – Varonis
• Lose out to competitors: 52 percent of customers will be lost to competitors who provide better security aspects – Varonis