Insurance Firm restructures Data Governance department

After meeting with one of our clients, a market leading insurance company, FourthLine identified an issue where the client did not know or have, enough research to effectively structure their Data Governance Function.

The Challenge

Having already placed a Data Protection Officer within the business, our consultant met with the firm’s Hiring Manager to discuss and identify business needs that we could fulfill. 

It became apparent during the conversation that they wanted to become smarter with their use of data. The firm was experiencing an issue with data silos across the business and because there is no clear-cut path into structuring a Data Governance team, they were looking for guidance on how to do this effectively.

They also wanted to determine where the function should sit within the business and who should they report to?

The Solution

We determined that in order to solve this problem, we would produce an in-depth Market Intelligence Report to look at how their competitors were structuring their own data governance function and see where this could benefit their own business model.

Methodology

First, we met with the current Head of Data Governance to gain an insight into the current challenges the business was facing and identified three “target companies”, who were either competitors or were companies on a level that our client aspired to be.

We then conducted our own thorough research into the target companies themselves, to find out how they embedded Data Governance within their business structure and understand what solutions worked well for them and what didn’t. We did this by not only identifying how their Data Governance teams were structured, but also what products and tools the company used to implement their data strategy successfully.

Throughout the production of the report, we also held weekly “steering calls” with the client, to ensure that we were collating relevant and valuable information for the intelligence report.

After we conducted our research, we then compiled our findings into the Market Intelligence Report, comparing the differing approaches each of the competitors made to their Data Management. From this, we then provided our own recommendations as to what ‘next steps’ our client should take in order to build a successful Data Governance department.

The Result

Since receiving our report, our client has restructured their Data Governance Department and are in the process of hiring five new team members, including a Chief Data Officer.

"Lauren helped me scope the project, advising on the best approach based on her previsions experience. She completed the research very effectively, delivering exactly what I needed within agreed timescales. I really enjoyed working with Lauren; she was extremely professional and insightful – and we had plenty of laughs along the way!"