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5 Data and Analytics KPIs Every Executive Should Track

Published 18 May 2022 - ID G00766978 - 10 min read

By Frank Buytendijk, Alan D. Duncan

Executive leaders need to manage data as an asset. This starts with tracking five critical key
performance indicators for data and analytics, for which every executive leader has a
responsibility.

Overview
Key Findings
■ The responsibility for data and analytics is distributed across the various business departments, the
D&A team and IT.

■ Less than a third (29%) of respondents to the 2022 Gartner Chief Data Officer Survey 1
are
successfully meeting the objective of “ROI from data and analytics investments.”

■ Organizations often find it difficult to demonstrate and quantify the value of data and analytics
initiatives in business terms.

Recommendations
Executive leaders must treat data as an asset by tracking these five KPIs:

■ Track the business impact of D&A through linking use cases to business outcomes.

■ Track the time from insight to action by monitoring how long it takes before D&A insights are acted
upon.

■ Measure data quality by assessing the datasets related to your business domain. The D&A team
should be able to help with this.

■ Track data literacy levels, as this is the basis of becoming more data-driven as an organization.

■ Quantify the risk involved with your D&A by looking at regulatory compliance and data ethics.

Introduction

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This research is adapted from Data and Analytics Strategies Need More-Concrete Metrics of Success
and Create a Dashboard to Measure the Business Impact of Data and Analytics.

Nearly everyone will agree that data is an asset. And it is the responsibility of executive leaders to use
all available assets to achieve concrete business outcomes. However, there is ample room for
improvement in most organizations’ methods for turning data into business outcomes.

Many organizations have appointed D&A leaders, and increasingly in the form of chief data and
analytics officers (CDAOs). But this doesn’t absolve everyone else of business responsibility. CDAOs
are responsible for guiding executive leaders enterprisewide on how to use the data best, but CDAOs
are not the data owners. The various domain executives are.

D&A tasks are distributed. Some tasks fall under the responsibility of the CDAO, some under the
responsibility of various other executive leaders (see How to Create an Optimal Data and Analytics
Organizational Model).

Executive leaders should pay more attention to managing data, as data is central to every digital
business initiative, and therefore to all related business goals and outcomes. Consider the following
examples:

■ Information becomes a monetizable asset — a means to grow the business or a product that the
business can sell.

■ Predictive asset maintenance, a combination of Internet of Things (IoT) and predictive analytics,
drives concrete cost savings, but requires every single asset to be identified uniquely. It hinges on
solid information governance.

■ Product and service personalization also requires a combination of product and customer master
data management (MDM), governance, and trust in data.

■ Algorithms, trained by seas of data, take autonomous action — for example, in financial trading,
patient monitoring, manufacturing control, customer service and support, fraud detection,
advertising, and so on.

What gets measured gets done. Therefore, Gartner proposes five D&A-related KPIs that every
executive should track:

■ Business impact of D&A

■ Time from insight to action

■ Data quality

■ Data literacy levels

■ D&A risk

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Table 1 shows what this part of the business dashboard could look like.

Table 1: Business Dashboard for 5 D&A-Related KPIs

KPI Breakdown Progress

D&A Business Impact Use case 1 (direct): Use case 1: 80% underway, on track
$17,000,000
Currently: $2,000,000 Use case 2: 20% underway, 3 months
Use case 2 (touched): delay
Target for EOY:
$6,000,000
Use case 3: achieved
$23,000,000
Use case 3
(anecdotal):
$2,000,000

Time from Insight to Action Discovery 1: 70 days Speeding up approval process: 80%
done
Currently: 45 days Discovery 2: 10 days
Improving data literacy: 55% staff
Target for EOY: 7 days Discovery 3: 55 days
trained

Speeding up IT involvement: 10%

done

Data Quality Customer data: 60% Remove manual reconciliation

process (prospect data): 100% done
Currently: 70% of sales Prospect data: 80%
forecast based on unverified Train data entry associates
Market data: 10%
data (customer data): 25% done

Target for EOY: 10%

Data Literacy Levels Top management: Uptake in self-service reporting and

100% dashboards
Currently: 35% of staff
completed the program Middle management: Staff survey results on usefulness of
24% their new skills
Target for EOY: 100%
Analysts: 70%

Individual
contributors: 50%

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KPI Breakdown Progress

D&A Risk Regulatory % Projects undergoing ethics review:

compliance issues: 30%
Currently: data risk
$5,000,000
$17,000,000 % Projects undergoing privacy impact
Reputation risk assessment: 80%
Target for EOY: $5,000,000
issues: $12,000,000
% Projects undergoing data
protection impact assessment: 55%

Source: Gartner (May 2022)

Analysis
Track Business Impact of D&A
Business impact is the most important KPI. Measure, in quantitative terms, the impact of the various
use cases for D&A on your business domain. List your goals, map the various use cases to those
goals, and assess the business impact. There are multiple methodologies to quantitatively measure
the business impact of D&A. See Figure 1 for an overview, and see Applied Infonomics: How to
Measure the Net Value of Your Information Assets for more information.

Figure 1: Different Ways of Measuring the Value of Data

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Business impact can be achieved in multiple ways:

■ Business outcomes can be indirect: There is no formal evidence linking new insights and “better
decisions” to business outcomes; however, the business feels the investment is worthwhile.

■ Business outcomes can be leading: There is a concrete outcome that predicts another business
outcome. For instance, improving data quality leads to a higher first-time-right percentage in a
business process, which leads to lower process cost.

■ Business outcomes can be anecdotal: There is no formal system for the business to track business
outcomes structurally, but anecdotal evidence indicates that the platform is successful.

■ Business outcomes can be direct: Through A/B testing, it is possible to test the effect of the use of
D&A compared to another set of process instances without that use.

■ Business outcomes can also be touched: Often, multiple factors generate business outcomes, and
trying to isolate the D&A contribution is counterproductive, leading to zero-sum arguments of who
contributed the biggest percentage. In these cases, it is better to speak of how many business
outcomes D&A touched, together with other contributors.

To support managing this KPI, it may also make sense to track the progress to those business
outcomes, but track how far the various use cases are implemented and executed as well.

Table 2: Example of Business Impact KPI

Business
Breakdown Progress
Impact

Currently: Use case 1 (direct): Use case 1: 80% underway, on track

$2,000,000 $17,000,000
Use case 2: 20% underway, 3 months
Target for EOY: Use case 2 (touched): delay
$6,000,000
$23,000,000 Use case 3: achieved
Use case 3 (anecdotal):
$2,000,000

Source: Gartner (May 2022)

Monitor Time From Insight to Action

Advanced analytics and data science provide the business with insights coming from data. These
insights sometimes are a response to a clear, upfront business question. In other cases, data science

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takes a more inductive approach, discovering what interesting insights the data houses that the
business is not aware of. How fast is your organization in picking up on those insights and turning
them into action? The window of opportunity to benefit from a new insight is often limited. This KPI
tells you something about how D&A acts as a competitive differentiator for you.

Table 3: Track Time From Insight to Action Example

Time From Insight to Breakdown per

Progress Improvement
Action Discovery

Currently: 45 days Discovery 1: 70 days Speeding up approval process:

80% done
Target for EOY: 7 days Discovery 2: 10 days
Improving data literacy: 55% staff
Discovery 3: 55 days
trained

Speeding up IT involvement: 10%

done

Source: Gartner (May 2022)

Measure Data Quality

Data quality is often seen as an IT problem. It is not. That’s because data quality is not understood
properly. When we say measure data quality, we don’t mean report on the number of data records
cleaned up. We mean: Consider how much of your business plan is currently using untrusted and
ungoverned data. If your head of sales realized that 70% of their sales forecast is based on unverified
prospect and customer data, do you think they would be interested in a data quality program? What
about a child welfare officer who determines that 40% of welfare cases are using unvalidated data?

The various business domains responsible for the initial data measurement (for instance, through
various business systems) are also responsible for the quality of the measurement process, and for
determining the relevance and impact of that data. Data is the fuel for anything digital business
related; data quality is the means to make sure that fuel is first grade.

Table 4: Measuring Data Quality Example

Breakdown
Data Quality Progress Improvement Actions
per Dataset

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Breakdown
Data Quality Progress Improvement Actions
per Dataset

Currently: 70% of sales forecast Customer data: Remove manual reconciliation process
based on unverified data 60% (prospect data): 100% done

Target for EOY: 10% Prospect data: Train data entry associates (customer
80% data): 25% done
Market data:
10%

Source: Gartner (May 2022)

Track Data Literacy Levels

Many organizations state that they want to be more data-driven. This is more a question of skills and
attention than of technology. At the core of being data-driven is the level of data literacy that people in
your organization have. Being data literate means that people know how to interpret data,
communicate through data and turn data into action. Having a data literacy program, run by the CDAO,
often together with HR, is a common best practice. As data literacy is a necessary skill for all business
professionals, it is part of the responsibility of every executive to monitor the data literacy levels in the
organization.

Table 5: Tracking Data Literacy Levels Example

Breakdown per
Data Literacy Progress Actions
Type of Staff

Currently: 35% of staff Top management: 100% Uptake in self-service reporting and
completed the program dashboards
Middle management:
Target for EOY: 100% 24% Staff survey results on usefulness
of their new skills
Analysts: 70%
Individual contributors:
50%

Source: Gartner (May 2022)

Quantify Data and Analytics Risk

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There is a risk to data and analytics as well. A too-aggressive use of data and analytics can lead to
issues with regulatory compliance or data ethics. Also see Every Executive Leader Should Challenge
Their Teams on Digital Ethics. This KPI quantifies your risk exposure. It consists of the estimated
probability of a risk happening, multiplied by the involved cost.

Table 6: Quantifying Risk Exposure Example

Data and
Breakdown Progress Actions
Analytics Risk

Currently: data risk Regulatory compliance % Projects undergoing ethics review: 30%
$17,000,000 issues: $5,000,000
% Projects undergoing privacy impact
Target for EOY: Reputation risk issues: assessment: 80%
$5,000,000 $12,000,000
% Projects undergoing data protection
impact assessment: 55%

Source: Gartner (May 2022)

Evidence
1
2022 Gartner Chief Data Officer Study: This study was conducted to explore and track the business
impact of the CDO role and/or the Office of the CDO and the best practices to create a data-driven
organization. The research was conducted online from September through November 2022 among
496 respondents from across the world. Respondents were required to be the highest-level data and
analytics leader in the organization: chief data officer, chief analytics officer, the most senior leader in
IT with data and analytics responsibilities, or a business executive such as chief digital officer, or other
business executive with data and analytics responsibilities. The survey sample was gleaned from a
variety of sources (including LinkedIn), with the greatest number coming from a Gartner-curated list of
over 4,519 CDOs and other high-level data and analytics leaders.

Disclaimer: Results of this study do not represent global findings or the market as a whole but reflect
sentiments of the respondents and companies surveyed.

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