Achieving significant productivity wins via data-driven automation and unifying business insight into a single source of truth are just two big priorities for The Iconic’s analytics and data science chief.
Kshira Saagar joined the online retailer as head of analytics and data science six months ago and is tasked with transforming the way the company imagines and uses data. He boasts of more than a decade in analytics and decision sciences, working across Australia, the Americas, Asia and Europe for Fortune 100 clients in retail, telecoms, insurance, media, healthcare and logistics.
More recently, Saagar was with Fairfax, where he was responsible for institutionalising data-driven analytics across the media group’s core competencies and building next-generation analytical products.
Today, Saagar oversees a federated team of about 20 data scientists at The Iconic. His first decision was to unite staff members operating within different divisions into one team under his leadership, with the common aim of using data to improve business decision making.
Saagar was presenting on how he’s re-imagining data processing and warehousing and bringing agility and scalability into The Iconic at ADMA’s Data Day conferences in Sydney and Melbourne in February.
“At the Iconic, the data team is at the crossroads of the business, catering to every department of the company,” he told CMO, noting he has two people working with buying team exclusively, two in warehousing, two in customer support, two in finance, two in marketing, and so on. “The idea is people belong to one common team, which is my team, but work in a federated model.