Data democracy: Why IT must lose control for businesses to win

Time of India

26-06-2025

As enterprises race to become data-first, CIOs are shifting from IT leaders to business enablers—breaking silos, simplifying access, and embedding data-driven culture across functions.At the ETCIO Annual Conclave 2025, the provocative trilogue chat 'Data Democracy: Why IT Must Lose Control for Businesses to Win' set the stage for a brutally honest conversation on reimagining the data-to-decision pipeline in modern enterprises. Moderated by Sneha Jha, Editor at ETCIO, the session featured compelling perspectives from Vishal Gupta (Head of Business Transformation & Digital, Godrej Consumer Products), Pavan Goyal (CIO, Mphasis), and Pramod Mundra (President & CIO, Havells). Together, they challenged the traditional power equations between IT and business and offered an insider's lens into how progressive enterprises are redistributing the power of data.
Democratizing without diluting: The quality imperative
Vishal Gupta framed the discussion by stating the uncomfortable truth: 'Democratization of bad data is worse than not democratizing at all.' For data democracy to deliver value, enterprises must first ensure a single, well-governed source of truth. At Godrej Consumer Products, this means centralizing data platforms, ensuring transformation integrity at the source, and putting data accountability on application owners. 'Cutting access to alternate data sources forces adoption and surfaces quality issues faster,' he emphasized.
Pramod Mundra echoed the sentiment, underscoring the importance of allowing teams to fail fast—if they can recover faster. Drawing on Amazon's 'one-door vs. two-door decisions' framework, he advocated calibrating the freedom to experiment based on reversibility. 'Let people own their analytics. Just ensure everyone refers to the same version of truth,' he said.
When experience meets data—and friction ensues
Democratization often leads to political turf wars when data challenges gut instincts. In legacy-heavy industries like FMCG and manufacturing, this tension is palpable. 'Traditional managers trust their experience more than the data,' Pramod admitted. The solution? Make executive reviews dependent on standard dashboards and ensure data access is frictionless. 'Friction becomes an excuse to resist change,' he warned. With top-down sponsorship and seamless access, even the most change-averse departments begin aligning with data-led decision-making.
Breaking silos, building platforms, encouraging playgrounds
Pavan Goyal took the conversation further by exploring both the pros and cons of silos. 'Not all silos are bad,' he remarked, drawing a distinction between counterproductive knowledge silos and value-adding specialty units. To dismantle the former, Mphasis deployed an AI-enabled knowledge management framework—gamifying contributions and rewarding knowledge sharing. 'Our content consumption jumped 10x in six months,' he revealed.
Empowering business teams through AI-powered data platforms and self-service tools emerged as a clear strategy across panelists. Havells, for example, is creating a language model using Databricks to enable enterprise-wide conversational access to data. 'This will drastically reduce friction,' said Pramod. Meanwhile, Godrej is enabling teams to move from univariate to multivariate analyses to improve the precision of business insights.
Perhaps the most powerful metaphor of the evening came from Vishal Gupta: 'The CIO must evolve from being a gatekeeper to becoming a shopkeeper of insights.' Like a smart retailer, the CIO must ensure that the right data is on the right shelves at the right time—ready for consumption, without barriers. He advocated moving from a 'Kirana shop' model—where the IT team curates data—to a 'marketplace model'—where business users co-create data experiences. 'It's not just about access. It's about creating a pleasurable, productive experience with data,' he said.
Guardrails, governance, and cultural realignment
When asked about reconciling business agility with governance, the panelists were unanimous: data governance is non-negotiable. Pramod emphasized that it's not IT's mandate alone but an enterprise-wide commitment. 'Overriding privacy and security is not an option,' he said. The panel also highlighted that governance needs to be embedded in organizational culture, not layered on as an afterthought.
From access to impact: Stories that sell the dream
The panelists shared powerful anecdotes of how data access at the mid-level has led to high-impact decisions. Vishal recalled how Godrej's marketing team used granular data to correlate commodity price shifts with competitor pricing and internal profitability—turning data into a strategic lever. However, he warned that without the right analytical training, flawed assumptions—like simplistic univariate analyses—can lead to misleading insights. Hence, the need for guardrails alongside empowerment.
Monetizing data: From hype to meaningful impact
The session concluded with a reality check on data monetization. Rather than external sales of data, each panelist focused on internal value creation—be it enabling hyper-personalized customer experiences, accelerating project kick-offs, or enhancing distributor efficiency.
'We're not selling data. We're selling better decisions,' Vishal noted, as the audience nodded in agreement.