CFO Studio Magazine with David Chambers, CFO, Jaguar Land Rover NA

3rd QUARTER 2016 WWW.CFOSTUDIO.COM 43 and resources on an annual basis, and looking for opportunities to grow the business.” He continued, “The only way to successfully do this is to understand where your revenue is coming from. Delivering great customer service, and knowing your customer, is the key component of that.” CFOs gathered at the CFO Studio event agreed that the day-to-day challenges they face in their efforts to make each customer feel that he or she is the most important person in the world are the same, “regardless of industry or widget.” George Neal, New York metro area Regional VP of Sales for California-based Tidemark, a private enterprise performance management company that is a CFO Studio Business Development Partner, said, “With a tighter economic market, all companies are focused on understanding the customer experience and retaining that customer.” He noted that it only makes sense that the role of “the CFO has morphed into a strategic advisor to the business, as opposed to simply a steward of the business.” Leveraging Technology Mr. Friedman moved the dinner conversation in another direction by describing his organization’s leveraging of technology to deal with a unique customer service matter — safely and smoothly getting tens of thousands of fans from the parking lot tailgate parties to their seats before kickoff. That led to the group’s discovering another common thread: “We all agreed that Big Data is an over- hyped term,” he said. “It’s not about Big Data as much as people make it out to be. It’s about actionable information.” Mr. Friedman added, “We’re all looking for sources of information that will help us make ... decisions that can drive better customer service.” Some people will call that Big Data, he said, but “none of us felt that Big Data is the appropriate term for it.” The CFOs agreed that data may be helpful, but can be useless, while information is invaluable. “What are we trying to do with data?” Mr. Friedman asked. “When gathering data, as CFOs what actionable information or intelligence can we get, and what decisions are we trying to make?” His conclusion: “Until we can clearly state what those objectives are, getting reams of data doesn’t necessarily do anything for us.” Coming from a different perspective, Mr. Neal said it was very surprising to him that “technology providers assume there is enough information available about Big Data, but clearly CFOs must better educate themselves as to the tangible ways they can harness and leverage it.” In the end, both gentlemen, and the CFOs attending the dinner discussion, acknowledged that while such debates are indeed intellectually stimulating, it is quite nice, every so often, to be in a roomwhere everyone is on the same page and singing the same CFO and customer service tune. C L. to R.: Anand Kini of NBC Universal, George Neal of Tidemark, and John Bermel of HealthFirst Discussion Leader Brian Friedman Chief Financial Officer New York Jets BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT PARTNER George Neal Regional Vice President of Sales Tidemark MEETING PARTICIPANTS John Bermel Interim Chief Financial Officer HealthFirst Michael Colangelo Chief Financial Officer Maersk Claude Draillard VP, Finance – CFO Dassault Falcon Jet Lars Green Chief Financial Officer Novo Nordisk Rustom Jilla Executive Vice President & CFO MSC Industrial Supply Anand Kini Chief Financial Officer NBC Universal