By Mike Ramsey
Ford Motor Co., awash in new data from cars, smartphones and
even its own machinery, has created a new chief data and analytics
officer position and appointed former Dun and Bradstreet and
General Motors Co. expert Paul Ballew to the post.
Ford already has pushed deep into the use of so-called "big
data" to help dealers figure out what combinations and numbers of
vehicles to order, among other things.
Mr. Ballew, who starts on Jan. 5, will try to bring together the
massive influx of information flowing into the company.
"There will be literally a large wave of even more data coming
into the company," said Mark Fields, in an interview Monday. "It's
really important to have a centralized person bringing that
together."
Before joining Ford, Mr. Ballew was the global chief of data and
analytics at Dun and Bradstreet. Before that, he worked at
Nationwide Insurance, General Motors Co. and J.D. Power and
Associates.
Write to Mike Ramsey at michael.ramsey@wsj.com
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