CDO Conversations: Role of Data in Improving Customer Experience

Enterprises are investing huge amounts to acquire and use data, but ultimately, what are they doing with it? According to Sharath Gokula, Director of Data Sciences and Analytics at Walmart eCommerce, data is the key to understanding Walmart’s customers and drives the company’s decisions about how to create an optimal customer experience. In this recent CDO Conversation, Gokula spoke with Tristan Spaulding, Head of Product at Acceldata, about the challenges — and opportunities — for CDOs as they seek to optimize their data environments so they can support continuous business improvement and improve the customer experience. 

Walmart eCommerce is a multibillion-dollar segment of Walmart, and has a long history of being a keen and prescient user of data to grow their business. As Gokula explains, data has been a critical differentiator because it gives Walmart eCommerce the ability to understand trends, behaviors, and anomalies about user engagement. As he and Spaulding discuss, it’s not just a matter of having more data, but the quality and reliability of that data is typically what delivers competitive advantages. 

In addition, Spaulding and Gokula address the need for modern CDOs to develop skills and have awareness across a broad range of disciplines, including analytics, data engineering, and machine learning. Doing this gives them an appreciation for the roles of different data team members, and that helps them develop a data-driven culture across their organization. 

Listen to this wide-ranging discussion from these experienced, thoughtful data leaders to learn more about how to use data effectively in your organization. You can also learn about how a subsidiary of Walmart, PhonePe, is using data observability to scale their data infrastructure by 2000% and save $5 million annually.

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