MAY 2018CIOAPPLICATIONSEUROPE.COM 19eing able to gather relevant data, analyze it, and then act on it in meaningful ways, while protecting it from misuse, is critical to ongoing success and innovation. With 40+years of historical data on tens of millions of mortgage records, Freddie Mac's Single-Family Business manages a vast amount and variety of data. By investing strategically in data, we have equipped Getting to Big Data: 3 Lessons Learnedthe business to draw meaningful insights, to reimaging the mortgage experience, and generate value for our customers, their borrowers, and the housing industry. It's been a journey to achieve this, and it's one that continues.When Freddie Mac Single-Family established a business-driven data organization in 2014, a key step was to craft our Data Strategy, which described the data and analytic capabilities needed to support Single-Family's business strategy and objectives. Over the last three years, the Strategy has provided a framework for prioritizing work and measuring progress.So much has changed since we developed the Strategy that we recently completed the process of refreshing it. It was time to take a step back and evaluate progress, evolving best practices for data governance and management, and emerging tools. Data governance, management, and analytics are a rapidly changing discipline, and, while you can't chase every new development, a periodic reassessment is important.So, what did we discover through the refresh process? Based on a scan of the industry, we validated that we have been moving in the right direction over the past three years and gathered new best practices, tools, and technologies that will help propel us forward. The exercise also underscored the need to focus on people and processes.Three key take-always stand out:Don't go it alone. Throughout our data journey, we leveraged the knowledge and expertise of those around us. We spent time with other large financial institutions to share best practices and tools, and to discuss challenges and possible solutions. We will continue to engage with these and other communities of data practitioners, as contributors and recipients. New communities are forming within industries and geographies all the time.We also leveraged the expertise of deeply knowledgeable consultants to help accelerate projects and to transfer knowledge and experience in new data disciplines to our staff. We don't have to figure it out on our own; strategically leveraging the knowledge and experience in the market often can be the best approach. Networking and leveraging partnerships have led to positive outcomes, and we will continue to make the most of those opportunities where most advantageous.It's a triathlon, not a sprint. We are delivering considerable business value based on the progress we have made so far, but implementing and fully realizing the benefits of a business-driven data strategy is certainly a multi-year journey. The path toward success requires the flexibility to adjust the ultimate data goal and the route when it makes Jodi Morton, VP of Single Family Data Governance and Management, Freddie MacCarl Data Solutions [CSE:CRL, FSE:7C5, OTC:CDTAF]Optimizing Utilities through Smart DatacXoinsightsBJodi Morton
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