Four in every five (80%) of public-sector chief data officers (CDOs) in Singapore regret not having invested more in more data-driven initiatives before the pandemic hit, a new report from Qlik shows.
The report finds that such initiatives can drive technology to develop better citizen services like public health and mitigate the COVID-19 crisis.
Prepared by Omdia and commissioned by Qlik, the report covers four Asia Pacific (APAC) countries – Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and India – and surveyed 103 senior public sector data executives.
Findings show that while 80% of CDOs in Singapore (vs 65% in APAC) understand the value of data for making mission-critical decisions, there remains a need to further strengthen data governance across government agencies, especially amid the growing volume and complexity of data.
Two in every five (40%) government agencies in Singapore have yet to seize the opportunity to set up a data governance body, despite its proven efficacy in building management support and broadening the awareness of data’s value in decision-making.
Besides organizational support, CDOs in Singapore cited analytics and business intelligence technology as the top resourcing priority (80%) to enable data use within their organizations.
Data analytics (60%), data science (35%), and data policy (35%) ranked as the most sought-after skills among public-sector organisations in Singapore.
Besides skills, the CDOs in Singapore surveyed also expressed the need to establish a corporate culture of using data to support decisions (65%) and a more data literate workforce (55%).
In the next 12 months when data initiatives are expected to become more strategic and outcome-focused, key priorities include improving the availability of metadata for users (50%), introducing new technologies (45%), and achieving a data strategy with a one-year action plan (45%).
“There is a pressing need to reassess the public sector organization’s technology investment to enable a suitable strategy to meet the new normal’s emerging agility and innovation requirements,” said Kevin Noonan, emeritus chief analyst at Omdia. “Leaders must also better define and enable the CDO role to realise data-driven decision-making.”
