Data quality and business value were the focal points of this year’s MIT Chief Data Officer and Information Quality (CDOIQ) conference. Dat Tran, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Data Governance and Analysis at the Department of Veterans Affairs, was among the bigwigs who stopped by SiliconANGLE’s theCube to share their insights into these topics.

The VA is tapping into new data sources as part of a cross-agency initiative to improve service levels for veterans. According to Tran, data quality is essential for the analysts and data scientists who are working to determine the “priority of how we approach the customer data integration.” The agency is to looking to become an “integrated business service delivery organization” by leveraging existing data from the Department of Defense to minimize the hassle associated with veterans benefit claims.

The VA is not quite there yet, Tran admitted, but his team has made a lot of progress toward reducing the burden on veterans and proactively providing benefits and services. He added that “the people factor is the hardest to change” when adopting a data-driven approach to customer care. Mario Faria, Latin America’s first Chief Data Officer, concurred.

Faria told theCube hosts Dave Vellante and Jeff Kelly that he “did more listening than any other action” on his first day on the job. The reason, he explained, is that CDOs need to have a good understanding of the business challenges facing their organizations. This insight is essential for driving value and lowering overhead on a company-wide level.

The CDO is more than just a glorified data scientist. Faria highlighted that his position requires people skills, a finger on the pulse of business, and the ability to communicate data patterns to decision makers.