As crucial as big data is proving to be for business, its incorporation into workplace and culture is a challenge that involves an often painstaking reinvention of processes. Today, processes for ensuring data quality and usefulness are far more valuable than quantity or storage capability, according to Seth Dobrin (pictured, right), vice president and chief data officer at IBM Analytics, who has helped to create a path for businesses to follow, including for TD Bank Group, which uses the IBM System z mainframes in its information technology operations.

“Each line of business has to identify what’s critical to them. … What are your core business processes, and what data are you leveraging to provide value to that. Data quality for us is about a consistent approach to ensure the most critical elements of data that are used for your business processes are where they need to be from a quality perspective,” said Jennifer Gibbs (pictured, left), vice president of enterprise data management at TD Bank Group.

Gibbs has the benefit of hindsight with her company already a few years along in its journey toward full modernization. At TD Bank, Gibbs and her team have established a company-wide approach around identifying critical data that’s helped them streamline quality assurance and reach objectives faster.

Dobrin and Gibbs spoke with Rebecca Knight (@knightrm) and Dave Vellante (@dvellante), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the IBM Chief Data Officer Summit event in Boston, Massachusetts. They discussed the potential for overall enhanced functionality through a commitment to data quality, outlooks on the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, and how businesses looking to stay competitive can best allocate resources while making the shift. (* Disclosure below.)

“The whole purpose of having and collecting data is to use it to generate new value for the company. … That new value could be cost savings, it could be a cost avoidance, or it could be net new revenue,” Dobrin said. “To do it right, you need processes, and the processes are everything from business processes to technical processes to implementation processes.”

GDPR: embracing limitations for better performance

While fundamentally changing ingrained company processes is a significant undertaking, the results can be well worth the challenge. Regulations, like those set by GDPR, should not be considered with hesitation, but as opportunities to improve customer relationships, internal communications and an overall understanding of your business and audience.

“Lots of people are scared of GDPR, [but] I think it’s a really good thing. It forces companies to build a personal relationship with each of their clients, because you need to get consent to do things with their data,” Dobrin said.

Gibbs’ experience actualizing data quality initiatives at TD Bank Group has been as positive as the one Dobrin describes. “It’s really driving important conversations around who’s the producer of this data, who’s the consumer of this data, what does data quality mean to you? It’s generating a lot of conversation … about data in more of a shared way. … Those conversations are important byproducts of the individual data quality efforts that we’re making across the bank,” Gibbs stated.

For companies considering new data initiatives, Dobrin recommended a laser-focused approach. He also advised not to spend a lot of resources on anything that is not value added. “It’s important to do things like data quality around a specific use case so that you do it right,” he concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of IBM Chief Data Officer Summit. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the IBM Chief Data Officer Summit. Neither IBM, the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE