Reference no: EM132759252

Every business has been disrupted by digital transformation and it has been rightly pointed out by senior business leaders that data is the new currency. In order to explore how organizations use data and analytics to inform strategic and operational decisions McKinsey and Company conducted an interview with Ash Gupta, Chief Risk Officer, American Express. Below is an excerpt from the interview. "The first change we had to make was just to make our data of higher quality. We have a lot of data, and sometimes we just weren't using that data and we weren't paying as much attention to its quality as we now need to. The second area is working with our people and making certain that we are centralizing some aspects of our business. We are centralizing our capabilities and we are democratizing its use. I think the other aspect is that we recognize as a team and as a company that we ourselves do not have sufficient skills, and we require collaboration across all sorts of entities outside of American Express."

Question) Does data and analytics centralize or decentralize decision making in organizations? What do you think? What would be your advice to companies like American Express as they embark on their digital transformation journey, given the concerns that Ash Gupta raise in the interview?