The AWS GenAI Data Day 2024 “Delivering Business Outcomes through Data and AI Strategy” session opened up on 15th October 2024 with Vivek Pandit, Principal Analytics Sales Specialist of Amazon Web Services moderating.
Panel speakers included:
- Antje Bustamante, VP Data, Funding Circle
- Jules Marshall, Director of Product Data, BBC
- Joe Carroll, General Manager, Media & Entertainment Industry, Amazon Web Services
- Lisa Ewens, Sr. VP Product, Sage
- Perry Philipp, Chief Data Officer, Entain
AWS moderator Vivek Pandit set the scene and highlighted how establishing a clear plan for Data Strategy implementation was paramount for all organisations in order to drive business growth. The panel came together to communicate collectively their commitment to deliver enterprise value through a foundational Data & AI strategy approach that encompasses people, process and technology.
LatestSale.com summarize key insights from these business executives who have prioritized real life use cases to establish and support their growth, using data strategies to drive results forward.
FUNDING CIRCLE, Antje Bustamante, VP Data
Antje Bustamante, VP of Data of commercial banking platform FUNDING CIRCLE, highlighted the importance attributed towards data governance and its direct link to profitability. Data distribution timelines were indicated as an impact factor alongside tools used to identify the correct data to share to educate business stakeholders and serve internal/external customers.
Bustamante re-affirmed Funding Circle’s leadership team’s dedication to solving customer pain points that include effective cost management that cannot be solved without a robust data strategy in place.
SAGE, Lisa Ewens, Sr. VP Product
Lisa Ewens, Sr. VP Product at enterprise management software and solutions company Sage attested to the need for establishing best-in-class GenAI chat experience queries using accurate financial data. Ewens admitted that currently, 100% accuracy had not been achieved and called for innovation that would unveil and encourage build for the right solutions.
Ewens also called for engineers to embrace addressing customer pain points by valuing a layer model data/ AI tool approach that should not be considered as a separate work stream. She furthermore insisted that a merged approach to data handling that consisted of bringing together up to 2,000 engineers through hackathons and educational initiatives was the best way to ensure greater efficiencies were assured whilst equally measuring customer satisfaction levels.
ENTAIN, Perry Philipp, Chief Data Officer
Perry Philipp, Chief Data Officer at Entain one of the world’s largest sports betting and gaming companies focused his contribution on change management strategies, highlighting the internal stakeholder challenge generated by the fear of change. He insisted that developing the right culture, process, and forums for trust that could propel the effective use of data to new heights through speed and accessibility was a viable way of building high levels of credibility and assurance, whilst also addressing global alignment factors.
BBC, Jules Marshall, Director of Product Data
Jules Marshall, Director of Product Data of the BBC (The British Broadcasting Corporation) also focused her contribution to the “Delivering Business Outcomes through Data and AI Strategy” session to Change management, Marshall pushed for strong leadership, and credible GenAI governance to realize true business value. She furthermore called for forward thinking alignment across the corporation that should reflect the wider strategy. Marshall pinpointed that as a not for profit, ascertaining where and how to measure value was challenging as is quantifying success and progress. Developing strong teams who could grasp the importance of the value chain- People Process and Technology was earmarked as a priority. Providing clarity for AI implementation; the reason for the change and engagement that takes an idea to delivery stage was said to be paramount.
BBC Upskilling and Workforce Empowerment
Jules Marshall, Director of Product Data of the BBC identified the importance of defining a process to deliver and implement a streamlined data strategy, claiming that normalizing data facilitates a more simplified recruitment decision making process, where identifying diverse experiences and perspectives are earmarked.
Marshall asserted that upskilling, empowering the workforce, and assessing skills profiling techniques through data were helping to regulate internal apprenticeship assessments. Furthermore, effective monitoring of analytics, engineering infrastructure and engineering career pathways had been opened up internally to existing staff members so they could learn additional skills as new technologies come to the forefront.
Marshall claimed that strategic alignment of data had generated more invigorating news, sports, and iPlayer sections, where data teams could more adequately discover which programming choices are the most valuable through engagement metrics, editorial and Marketing input.
Joe Carroll, General Manager Media & Entertainment Industry, Amazon Web Services
Amazon Web Services Media & Entertainment Industry GM Joe Carroll, spoke of project and outcome variables and explored insights deployed by interviewing stakeholders and establishing narratives. Carroll determined that KPIs are tied into projects and outcomes, with AdTech a key vehicle ripe for discovering new ways of monetizing content. Carroll expressed how keen he was to establish how quickly AdTech could develop, how customer engagement could be pulled together with new user journeys implemented.
Carroll emphasized his delight at reviewing solutions capable of showcasing how customers could scale and drive engagement of their products and services. He further elaborated on new types of augmented roles in tech that could be introduced over time, creating high levels of job satisfaction and therefore productivity. Carroll called for speed and the build of rapid prototypes democratising access to innovative solutions at the highest level globally.