Welcome back to Enterprise Product Leadership! I’m your host, Daniel Elizalde. With a new season, comes new changes — one of which is the title of the podcast! From IoT Product Leadership to Enterprise Product Leadership, the podcast is broadening its scope beyond IoT to focus on the overall challenges facing enterprise and industrial product leaders to drive solutions from idea to first release.

Joining me today as my first guest of this brand new season is Bill Schmarzo, Chief Innovation Officer at Hitachi Vantara. Bill is known as the ‘Dean of Big Data’ for the work he does in academia. He is also the author of three books that advise organizations on where and how to leverage big data and data science to power their business models.

 

We’ve all heard the phrase, “Data is the new oil,” but what does that really mean? And more importantly, what does it mean for us as product leaders? In this episode, we dive into this topic as well as the concept of the economic value of data. We also get a masterclass on how Bill works with his customers to prioritize opportunities and capitalize on the value of data.

 

Episode Details: The Economic Value of Data with Bill Schmarzo:

“Data is a unique asset. It never wears out [and] it never depletes. You can use it across an infinite number of use cases at a zero marginal cost [which] makes it the single most asset in the world.” — Bill Schmarzo

 

About Bill Schmarzo:

Bill Schmarzo is the Chief Innovation Officer at Hitachi Vantara. Bill is known as the ‘Dean of Big Data’ for the work he does in academia. He is recognized as an industry leader in big data, data science, design thinking, and data monetization. He is also the author of several books and has published over 350 industry-leading articles and educational videos on the application of big data and data science.

 

Topics We Discuss in this Episode:

• Exciting changes to the podcast
• Guest lineup for this season’s upcoming episodes
• Bill Schmarzo’s career background
• About Bill’s current role and focus as Chief Innovation Officer at Hitachi Vantara
• How to get value out of data
• Bill’s customer-centric, value-engineering approach
• Key lessons Bill has learned as a data scientist
• What it really means to empower your frontline
• How design-thinking has helped address challenges in data science
• Why being customer-centric is of critical importance
• Advice on how you can get support from leadership and senior management to allow for forward-thinking innovation and new ideas within your organization
• Fascinating concepts around the economic value of data from his newest book, The Economics of Data, Analytics, and Digital Transformation
• Insights on how product management/leadership roles and data scientists have evolved in terms of working together and determining the economic value of data
• How do you future-proof your career?
• Advice for product leaders who are new to developing data value-driven solutions

 

Product Leader Tip of the Week:

Bill’s advice to product leaders who are new to developing data value-driven solutions:

1. Design-thinking is critical. Understand your customers, the customer journey, and service design. You’re going to have to get very intimate with your customers about not providing products that put the onus of usage on them, but designing services that put the onus on you and your design team.
2. Teach all of your business stakeholders how to think like a data scientist. The mentality of thinking like a data scientist (of exploring and bringing in a diverse set of perspectives) in order to find variables and metrics that might be better predictors of performance is key.

 

To Learn More About Bill Schmarzo:

• Bill Schmarzo’s LinkedIn
• Bill Schmarzo’s Books
• Hitachi Vantara

 

Related Resources:

• The Art of Thinking Like a Data Scientist, by Bill Schmarzo
• The Economics of Data, Analytics, and Digital Transformation: The theorems, laws, and empowerments to guide your organization’s digital transformation, by Bill Schmarzo

 

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