---------- 1. CONTEXT
This new digital deluge that is sweeping the planet, said Craig Costello, Senior Researcher at Microsoft R+, is equivalent to each of us having 300 times the amount of information that was stored in the library of Alexandria.
Companies around the world are struggling to take radical advantage from this huge amount of datified potential through analytics and AI. But, according to Michael Lucca & Max Bazerman in ‘The Power of Experiments: Decision Making in a Data-Driven World’ (2021), companies fail because they belittles their greatest asset: their CULTURE.
In VidaCaixa, the leading Life Insurance Company in Spain with more than € 67 billions under management, we are aware of this great cultural challenge to become a fully data-driven company.
Our conviction is to continue being leaders in Spain in any ‘future scenario’, that is why we are committed to workforce innovation: we want to unleash the power of data thanks to our highly qualified people.
So, Vidatathon is our answer.
---------- 2. THE ANSWER: VIDATATHON
Vidatathon is the highly engaged, gamified and competitive learning path to create our Data-Driven Culture.
With Vidatathon each employee of VidaCaixa discovers the Data Scientist that they carry inside to find the hidden value of data. By upskilling the level of each person of our Company we will become a real Data Driven Company, ready to reshape the future.
Vidatathon applied gamification to intensifies practical thinking through leadership, collaboration and competition (see Slide 19).
More than 100 people of VidaCaixa participate in this first edition of Vidatathon. People are divided into cross-cutting teams, of very varied expertise, because to solve the Quizes they require mixing knowledge and skills. Each team is accompanied by a 'Data Lover', or Great Data Expert, who accompanies and guides them in every step of this ambitious competition.
Thus, teams enter a competition lasting several months and have to face the great challenge of solving 9 questions (see slide 22). Quizes are of increasing difficulty, from simple queries in our Data Pool to, in the last questions, advanced modeling and projections.
To help solve each question, the teams receive highly results-focused information and have less than two weeks to solve the proposed Quiz. The questions are not theoretical, but questions based on real and complex business problems of Life Insurance, and that require sharing knowledge and giving the best of each one to give the best solution. The last questions are defined by High Direction, posed as great challenges that only through advanced data analysis can we solve (see slide 22).
All solutions are evaluated by an Expert Committee based on three factors: Quick -the earlier it is sent, more points-, Excellence -the higher quality in the question, more points- and WOW Factor -extra points for exceeding expectations.
Teams compete in a ranking visible to the entire company.
There are 4 levels in Vidatathon (see slides 20-21):
- Data Rookie. basic data consumption + launch queries in data pool
- Data Expert. expert data knowledge + data management + customized reports
- Data Master. sophisiticated data analysis + basic modelization & simulations
- Data Legend. data guru + predictive & prescriptive modelizations
As the Quizes are passed, the teams and each member opt to receive their official certification. In this way we managed to develop: analytics capabilities, shared practices, real data-friendly values, and superior decision making; the basic elements to build a Data Driven Company, from the individual to the community of the entire organization.
After each meeting where the certifications are delivered and the best teams share their solutions to the quizzes, we celebrate the data culture and give gifts to the participants.
Our aim is to achieve a 97% of Data Literacy in 3Q 2022.
Vidatathon has been a great success (see Results), with real impacts in our organizational mindset, and data has become in VidaCaixa the epicenter to disrupt in the Spanish life insurance sector. We do not want to be prepared, but leading this shifting towards ‘Instant Everyting’ Life Insurance model.
Data can give you an unbeatable edge as a company, can you imagine this potential in the hands of our data-skilled people?
Giving voices & power to our people, we are ready to the future.
