We conducted a ground-breaking survey of the UK’s data and business professionals to get a snapshot of the state of the world of data, uncover some of the issues facing the industry and get a sense of the changes on the horizon. The results were enlightening, and in some cases, very surprising.
Enterprise Fusion: Your Pathway To A Better Customer ExperienceCognizant
In June 2018, Cognizant commissioned Forrester Consulting to test the hypothesis that digital transformation will succeed best when two conditions are met.
Consumer trust has become the new battleground for digital success. To win, organizations need to master the fundamentals of data ethics, manage the "give-to-get" ratio and solve the customer trust equation, our recent research reveals.
Enterprise Fusion: Your Pathway To A Better Customer ExperienceCognizant
In June 2018, Cognizant commissioned Forrester Consulting to test the hypothesis that digital transformation will succeed best when two conditions are met.
Consumer trust has become the new battleground for digital success. To win, organizations need to master the fundamentals of data ethics, manage the "give-to-get" ratio and solve the customer trust equation, our recent research reveals.
There’s never been a better time to be an analyst.
While historically analytics was consigned to the metaphorical fireplace in an organisation, to be acknowledged and occasionally fed but largely ignored, today the story is much evolved. The vast amounts of data being produced in ever greater amounts has led
to a renewed interest in making sense of this information treasure trove, and successfully unlocking its secrets can be a tremendous boon to businesses.
But the discipline is not without its challenges. Many organisations have not yet worked out how to store and organise the data they are generating, let alone analyse it. IT infrastructure is evolving, but not always in the right direction, and certainly not always fast enough in Asia.
Full Study - Digital Roadblock: Marketers Struggle to Reinvent ThemselvesAdobe
We’ve all heard it: The future of marketing is digital. Get on board or get left behind. So what’s holding marketers back?
We surveyed more than 1,000 U.S. marketers to explore how they’re evolving in the digital age, where they need help and what their priorities are going forward. This is the full results from our Digital Roadblock study.
MTBiz is for you if you are looking for contemporary information on business, economy and especially on banking industry of Bangladesh. You would also find periodical information on Global Economy and Commodity Markets.
The difficult art of quantifying return on digital investmentsBen Gilchriest
Measuring digital investments is proving to be a challenging task. Many companies have tried to create models that demonstrate the value of digital technologies, such as social media, applying traditional metrics to these. However, it's proving to be difficult to find a credible method.
So how do we make the difficult decision on where to invest in digital; especially when we are under so much pressure to do so much more? Whilst we need some sort of mechanism in place to make informed choices, traditional approaches to ROI are falling short. This paper describes these challenges in more detail (you are not alone, even amongst the world's leading digital companies, the 'Digirati', only 56% create a business case). It also describes three approaches you can take to define a digital business case, and provides perspectives on how to best approach digital investment decisions.
Presentation deck from a webinar with Comcast Business and Entrepreneur about collecting and using customer and prospect data to provide the best experience for customers.
Successful implementation of predictive analytics can feel unpredictable. There are risks that need to be consciously addressed, and successful implementation requires the right strategy. Join Anita Lauper Wood, Product Strategist, for a valuable session for product and technology leaders.
Digitization affects almost everything in today's organizations, which makes capturing its benefits uniquely complex. However
1. Getting the engine in place to digitize at scale is uniquely complex as digital touches so many parts of an organization requiring unprecedented coordination of
People,
Processes, and
Technologies.
2. A strategy to increase revenue which generates the most value requires
A clear vision and plan for how to capture that value, and
Technologies and tools to digitize interactions with customers.
New capabilities and teams to manage and coordinate the delivery of those journeys across the organization.
3. With the average corporate life span falling for more than half a century(Standard & Poor’s data show it was 61 years in 1958, 25 years in 1980, and just 18 years in 2011) digitization is placing unprecedented pressure on organizations to evolve. That means digitally driven business model is crucial to survival.
Join Decision Management Solutions, Velocity Business Services and Datarobot as we discuss the importance of operational decisions, industrialized predictive analytics and business learning in creating a predictive enterprise.
Ericka pionin digital transformation – definedEricka Pionin
Digital Transformation – Defined
To be successful, companies must focus on customer experience and to remain sustainable, they must invest in digital technology.
Still can’t find any effecteive ways to eliminate Ads by VAFMusic from the infected computer? A lot of pop up ads powered by VAFMusic display on your webpage? This program is annoying rather than useful? Many unknown toolbars and extensions automatically add to your web browsers since you download this app? If you want to quickly and copmpletely get rid of this software and master some useful tips to better protect your computer against malware or other malicious programs in the future, please read this article with patience.
Being able to rapidly iterate on, build and test your code is key to being a productive developer. Without local automation, working with the numerous platforms and technologies in your stack can become very frustrating.
In this on-demand webinar, Ben Bromhead CTO of Instaclustr explores best practices to easily integrate Apache Cassandra into your development workflow, so you spend more time writing good code and less time fighting your environment.
There’s never been a better time to be an analyst.
While historically analytics was consigned to the metaphorical fireplace in an organisation, to be acknowledged and occasionally fed but largely ignored, today the story is much evolved. The vast amounts of data being produced in ever greater amounts has led
to a renewed interest in making sense of this information treasure trove, and successfully unlocking its secrets can be a tremendous boon to businesses.
But the discipline is not without its challenges. Many organisations have not yet worked out how to store and organise the data they are generating, let alone analyse it. IT infrastructure is evolving, but not always in the right direction, and certainly not always fast enough in Asia.
Full Study - Digital Roadblock: Marketers Struggle to Reinvent ThemselvesAdobe
We’ve all heard it: The future of marketing is digital. Get on board or get left behind. So what’s holding marketers back?
We surveyed more than 1,000 U.S. marketers to explore how they’re evolving in the digital age, where they need help and what their priorities are going forward. This is the full results from our Digital Roadblock study.
MTBiz is for you if you are looking for contemporary information on business, economy and especially on banking industry of Bangladesh. You would also find periodical information on Global Economy and Commodity Markets.
The difficult art of quantifying return on digital investmentsBen Gilchriest
Measuring digital investments is proving to be a challenging task. Many companies have tried to create models that demonstrate the value of digital technologies, such as social media, applying traditional metrics to these. However, it's proving to be difficult to find a credible method.
So how do we make the difficult decision on where to invest in digital; especially when we are under so much pressure to do so much more? Whilst we need some sort of mechanism in place to make informed choices, traditional approaches to ROI are falling short. This paper describes these challenges in more detail (you are not alone, even amongst the world's leading digital companies, the 'Digirati', only 56% create a business case). It also describes three approaches you can take to define a digital business case, and provides perspectives on how to best approach digital investment decisions.
Presentation deck from a webinar with Comcast Business and Entrepreneur about collecting and using customer and prospect data to provide the best experience for customers.
Successful implementation of predictive analytics can feel unpredictable. There are risks that need to be consciously addressed, and successful implementation requires the right strategy. Join Anita Lauper Wood, Product Strategist, for a valuable session for product and technology leaders.
Digitization affects almost everything in today's organizations, which makes capturing its benefits uniquely complex. However
1. Getting the engine in place to digitize at scale is uniquely complex as digital touches so many parts of an organization requiring unprecedented coordination of
People,
Processes, and
Technologies.
2. A strategy to increase revenue which generates the most value requires
A clear vision and plan for how to capture that value, and
Technologies and tools to digitize interactions with customers.
New capabilities and teams to manage and coordinate the delivery of those journeys across the organization.
3. With the average corporate life span falling for more than half a century(Standard & Poor’s data show it was 61 years in 1958, 25 years in 1980, and just 18 years in 2011) digitization is placing unprecedented pressure on organizations to evolve. That means digitally driven business model is crucial to survival.
Join Decision Management Solutions, Velocity Business Services and Datarobot as we discuss the importance of operational decisions, industrialized predictive analytics and business learning in creating a predictive enterprise.
Ericka pionin digital transformation – definedEricka Pionin
Digital Transformation – Defined
To be successful, companies must focus on customer experience and to remain sustainable, they must invest in digital technology.
Still can’t find any effecteive ways to eliminate Ads by VAFMusic from the infected computer? A lot of pop up ads powered by VAFMusic display on your webpage? This program is annoying rather than useful? Many unknown toolbars and extensions automatically add to your web browsers since you download this app? If you want to quickly and copmpletely get rid of this software and master some useful tips to better protect your computer against malware or other malicious programs in the future, please read this article with patience.
Being able to rapidly iterate on, build and test your code is key to being a productive developer. Without local automation, working with the numerous platforms and technologies in your stack can become very frustrating.
In this on-demand webinar, Ben Bromhead CTO of Instaclustr explores best practices to easily integrate Apache Cassandra into your development workflow, so you spend more time writing good code and less time fighting your environment.
GO.MAIL.RU is a malicious pop-up that came from several ad-related domains. This pop-up aims to entice computer users from availing what is being endorsed in the ads. In this case, GO.MAIL.RU web site tries to convince web user to install browser extension.
For the full blog's content, check out the original post at http://coralogix.com/process-big-data-using-1-5kb/ and make sure to check out Coralogix at http://coralogix.com/
Remove search.sidecubes.com redirect in simple stepsharoNaroum
Browser hijacker is harmful. There is absolutely nothing good about browser-hijack. And there is nothing we can pretend to get from SEARCH.SIDECUBES.COM browser hijacker. We can not get anything from this search program because do not forgive that every single moment in our surfing by using this site we continue getting redirection and commercial ads. When redirection happens and we do not understand why, then ask, “why?” clearly, something unwanted happened. There is no use if we only ask and guess what others will happen: we need to find the answer and solutions by ourselves.
The new ‘A and B’ of the Finance Function: Analytics and Big Data - -Evolutio...Balaji Venkat Chellam Iyer
Published in 2013, this White Paper discusses how the finance function would evolve with the combined forces of Big Data and Analytics and the levers that could help catalyze the change and has drawn upon the Global Trend Study conducted by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on how companies were investing in Big Data and deriving returns from it.
IAB Netherlands report: Report on Digital Marketing Innovation IAB Europe
With this survey, IAB Netherlands charts the digital innovation agenda of leading marketers in the Netherlands. In cooperation with Deloitte Digital we had interviews with 22 top marketers about the state of digital marketing in their organizations and we spoke about their expectations for the coming 3 years.
Driving Value Through Data Analytics: The Path from Raw Data to Informational...Cognizant
As organizations gather and process colossal amounts of data, analytics is essential for operational and strategic excellence. We offer a guide to the phases of the data analytics journey, from descriptive to diagnostic to predictive to prescriptive, covering intentions, tools and people considerations.
Acquire Grow & Retain customers - The business imperative for Big DataIBM Software India
The emergence of Big Data and Analytics has changed the way marketing decisions are made. Marketing has moved away from traditional ‘generalisation’ practices such as customer segmentation, geographical targeting etc. and is focussing more on the individual – the ‘Chief Executive Customer’.
As businesses generate and manage vast amounts of data, companies have more opportunities to gather data, incorporate insights into business strategy and continuously expand access to data across the organisation. Doing so effectively—leveraging data for strategic objectives—is often easier said
than done, however. This report, Transforming data into action: the business outlook for data governance, explores the business contributions of data governance at organisations globally and across industries, the challenges faced in creating useful data governance policies and the opportunities to improve such programmes.
Magenta advisory: Data Driven Decision Making –Is Your Organization Ready Fo...BearingPoint Finland
It’s nice to have loads of data. Nevertheless, many managers start to sweat when it comes to genuinely fact-based decision making. This study reveals the keys to leveraging big data successfully.
Big & Fast Data: The Democratization of InformationCapgemini
Moving from the Enterprise Data Warehouse to the Business Data Lake
Is it possible that ubiquitous analytics represents the next phase of the information age? New business models are emerging, enabled by big data that business leaders are eager to adopt in order to gain advantage and mitigate disruption from start-ups and parallel industries. The winners are likely to be those that master a cultural shift as well as a technology evolution.
Our view is this will be realized through the alignment of a business-centric big data strategy, combined with democratization of the analytical tools, platforms and data lakes that will enable business stakeholders to create, industrialize and integrate insights into their business processes.
Innovative approaches are needed to free up data from silos whilst encouraging both the sharing and the continuous improvement of insights across the business. While it will be evolution for some, revolution for others; the risk of status quo is not just the loss of opportunity but also a widening gap between business and the internal technology functions.
https://www.capgemini.com/thought-leadership/big-fast-data-the-democratization-of-information
Driving A Data-Centric Culture: The Leadership ChallengePlatfora
Embracing data as a corporate asset—and a source of competitive advantage—is not just a “good idea” that companies should consider. Such adoption will help determine the winners and losers across multiple markets and industries in the future.
In the last couple of years, corporate focus has shifted: first, from investing in the right technology and tools; then to acquiring the right talent and skills; and now to building the right organizational culture that can realize the business value of powerful big-data analytic tools.
Most organizations today are still focused on putting in place the right technology and talent, but others have evolved further and are working toward fostering a data-centric corporate culture.
Leading enterprise-scale big data business outcomesGuy Pearce
A talk specially prepared for McMaster University. There is more benefit to thinking about big data as a paradigm rather than as a technology, as it helps shape these projects in the context of resolving some of the enterprise's greatest challenges, including its competitive positioning. This approach integrates the operating model, the business model and the strategy in the solution, which improves the ability of the project to actually deliver its intended value. I support this position with a case study that created audited financial value for a major global bank.
Data Centers - Striving Within A Narrow Range - Research Report - MCG - May 2...pchutichetpong
M Capital Group (“MCG”) expects to see demand and the changing evolution of supply, facilitated through institutional investment rotation out of offices and into work from home (“WFH”), while the ever-expanding need for data storage as global internet usage expands, with experts predicting 5.3 billion users by 2023. These market factors will be underpinned by technological changes, such as progressing cloud services and edge sites, allowing the industry to see strong expected annual growth of 13% over the next 4 years.
Whilst competitive headwinds remain, represented through the recent second bankruptcy filing of Sungard, which blames “COVID-19 and other macroeconomic trends including delayed customer spending decisions, insourcing and reductions in IT spending, energy inflation and reduction in demand for certain services”, the industry has seen key adjustments, where MCG believes that engineering cost management and technological innovation will be paramount to success.
MCG reports that the more favorable market conditions expected over the next few years, helped by the winding down of pandemic restrictions and a hybrid working environment will be driving market momentum forward. The continuous injection of capital by alternative investment firms, as well as the growing infrastructural investment from cloud service providers and social media companies, whose revenues are expected to grow over 3.6x larger by value in 2026, will likely help propel center provision and innovation. These factors paint a promising picture for the industry players that offset rising input costs and adapt to new technologies.
According to M Capital Group: “Specifically, the long-term cost-saving opportunities available from the rise of remote managing will likely aid value growth for the industry. Through margin optimization and further availability of capital for reinvestment, strong players will maintain their competitive foothold, while weaker players exit the market to balance supply and demand.”
Levelwise PageRank with Loop-Based Dead End Handling Strategy : SHORT REPORT ...Subhajit Sahu
Abstract — Levelwise PageRank is an alternative method of PageRank computation which decomposes the input graph into a directed acyclic block-graph of strongly connected components, and processes them in topological order, one level at a time. This enables calculation for ranks in a distributed fashion without per-iteration communication, unlike the standard method where all vertices are processed in each iteration. It however comes with a precondition of the absence of dead ends in the input graph. Here, the native non-distributed performance of Levelwise PageRank was compared against Monolithic PageRank on a CPU as well as a GPU. To ensure a fair comparison, Monolithic PageRank was also performed on a graph where vertices were split by components. Results indicate that Levelwise PageRank is about as fast as Monolithic PageRank on the CPU, but quite a bit slower on the GPU. Slowdown on the GPU is likely caused by a large submission of small workloads, and expected to be non-issue when the computation is performed on massive graphs.
Techniques to optimize the pagerank algorithm usually fall in two categories. One is to try reducing the work per iteration, and the other is to try reducing the number of iterations. These goals are often at odds with one another. Skipping computation on vertices which have already converged has the potential to save iteration time. Skipping in-identical vertices, with the same in-links, helps reduce duplicate computations and thus could help reduce iteration time. Road networks often have chains which can be short-circuited before pagerank computation to improve performance. Final ranks of chain nodes can be easily calculated. This could reduce both the iteration time, and the number of iterations. If a graph has no dangling nodes, pagerank of each strongly connected component can be computed in topological order. This could help reduce the iteration time, no. of iterations, and also enable multi-iteration concurrency in pagerank computation. The combination of all of the above methods is the STICD algorithm. [sticd] For dynamic graphs, unchanged components whose ranks are unaffected can be skipped altogether.
1. Not waving but drowning
The state of data 2015
March 2015
2. The state of data: where are we now, and more importantly – where are we going?
When we conductedour survey of business
professionals, we set out to achieve three key objectives:
• take a snapshot of the current state of the world of data
• uncover some of the most pressing issues facing the Information
Management industry
• get a sense of what changes may be on the horizon
What we found was enlightening, and in some cases, quite surprising.
More than ever, data is the engine driving business. As recruiters
specialising in the field of Information Management and BI, we know
first-hand that the number of businesses across all sectors that consider
themselves to be ‘data driven’ is growing every day.
We expected to discover that robust, accessible, useful data is being
harnessed for a myriad of purposes: operational improvements,
increased understanding of customers, or positive business outcomes
such as increased revenue.
Instead, what we heard from survey respondents was jarring: only 29%
believe their organisations are using data well, dropping to 19%
amongst senior professionals. In an age where everyone knows that
data is the new oil, where are we going wrong? We’ll take a closer look at
this question, but one thing is clear:
The rise of big data has been nothing short of revolutionary. But more
is needed. A seismic shift in culture and strategy is required if we are
to truly view data as an asset rather than a liability. And the shift has to
start at the top, with more business leaders ‘getting’ data.
Sales and marketing teams are already reaping the benefits, as a
360-degree view into customer behaviour is one of the most common
applications for data. (Not to mention it’s a win for the consumer
as well.) Whilst the use of data to improve commercial outcomes is
coming into its own, it’s evident to us there’s a huge gap in using data
to improve operational efficiency internally. We consider this one of
the biggest areas of untapped potential as data adoption approaches
maturity.
What will the successful implementation of an IM strategy entail in the
future? As many technology-driven trends as we may see emerging, the
human element is more important than ever. Organisations need highly
specialised employees who possess not only technical ability, but
influencing skills and emotional intelligence as well.
Overall, the survey confirms to us that any barriers to optimising
the power of data lie not in hardware or software limitations, but in
putting together a team that can collaborate to create value for your
organisation.
Mark Dexter
...
Managing Director
KDR Recruitment
3. We’ve got the data – why aren’t we using it well?
With the majorityof survey respondents rating their
use of data from ‘average’ to ‘poor,’ there is clearly a disconnect
between the gathering of data and its application – or at least, there’s
the perception of one. More worryingly, this is more true for senior
management including IT Directors, CIOs and Heads of BI and Data.
So where is this disconnect happening? What are the perceived
obstacles to successful data application? Three strong themes
emerge from the comments made by survey respondents:
• Quality (Is the data clean, robust, reliable?)
• Strategy (What is the data’s purpose?)
• Culture (Are IT, Information Management, and the C-suite all on the
same page?)
We believe this to be the most critical issue the world of data is
currently facing. Without meaningful analytics and application, data
exists in a vacuum and will not help an organisation make better
business decisions. Companies will struggle to quantify the value
data adds, whilst the executive suite will lose confidence in KPI
reports and business cases.
The world of data is at a tipping point. Never before have we had such
technical power to gather, process, and store data. The clear next step
is making sense of it all, but to do this, Information Management and
the executive suite must be aligned in their objectives.
‘Data is often an
afterthought but needs to
be central. Linking data to
business processes (through
both purpose and content)
remains a challenge.’
Survey respondent
PROBLEM SOLUTION
QUALITY
Decentralised data;
unrestricted access
Increased standardisation, governance and security
STRATEGY Too much data
Alignment of business objectives; focusing on agility
rather than quantity; scalability
CULTURE
Lack of buy-in from
management
Knowledge sharing, influencing skills,
realistic expectations
Other respondentsSenior professionals%
Extremely well
Fairly well
About average
Fairly poorly
Extremely poorly
How well does your
organisation use data
4. Using data to improve performance: what’s ahead?
Overall, data ismost commonly being used to deliver
insight around three areas: profitability, customer behaviour and
cost of sales – not particularly surprising, given these are areas that
present strong ROI for data infrastructure spending.
Broken out by sector, we see some differences:
• Retailers focus on customer data
• Financial services are more concerned with costs and compliance
• IT/software sector are leveraging data for new product development
Fairly predictable, but it leaves us to wonder whether a narrow focus
on one area could be restricting the ability of companies to truly
harness the full power of their data. We see an opportunity here for
employers to recruit from outside their sector to bring in fresh new
perspectives.
Sales and marketing remain the clear focus in 2015, as enterprises
deploy data as a strategic asset to increase customer engagement
and explore options for growth. However, it’s noteworthy that internal
operational issues – such as the HR function, the supply chain,
process engineering, fraud detection or inventory – trail well behind
externally focused areas. Going forward, enterprises must make
data as critical to operations as it is to sales; unlocking the untapped
potential to improve efficiency in-house can contribute just as much
to the bottom line.
‘Businesses are still
developing their
understanding around
the power of intellectual
supplier spend and market
data. I tend to encounter a
lot of businesses who have
no consolidated supplier
performance reporting. This
means they don’t identify
synergies, efficiencies or
inefficiencies and don’t
realise the benefits of
consolidation or a complete
strategic change.’
Procurement Director
Hub Strategic Communications
Understanding customer behaviour
Understanding profitability
Understanding cost of sales
New product development
Setting pricing
To ensure legal compliance
Monitoring competitor activity
Managing staff retention
Other
Where do you use data to
improve performance?
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
%
5. Where is data most used to improve performance by sector?
Manufacturing
18%
to measure
profitability
Retail
25%
to understand
customer
behaviour
Energy/
utilities
24%
to understand
customer
behaviour
Financial
services
18%
to measure
cost of sales
IT/software
20%
to develop
new products
6. Where should we be using data?
Where data is being used vs where respondents think it should be used
Between 50 and 60% of survey respondents are using data to
understand customer behaviour and profitability but nearly 80%
believe they should be. Of course, the two are linked in that better
insight into your customers should lead to improved profitability, as
long as those insights translate to product or service development,
more compelling propositions and appropriate spend on most and least
valuable customers.
Many analysts struggle with the challenges of customer data whilst
sales and marketing departments recognise the need for hyper-
personalisation but lack the skills to implement such strategies. Those
who are successful in this area are able to pinpoint the customer
characteristics that lead to profitability (previous buying behaviour,
original lead source, brand engagement and so on) and filter out the
red herrings. They’ll then use this information to improve the customer
experience, whether that’s as simple as using the communication
channel of their preference or a game-changing new product launch.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
%
Current use
Should be used
Understanding
customer
behaviour
Understanding
profitability
Understanding
cost of sales
Setting
pricing
New product
development
Monitoring
competitor
activity
To ensure
legal
compliance
Managing
staff
retention
Other
7. Overcoming roadblocks calls for a change in culture
What are thebiggest barriers to implementing an
Information Management strategy? Whilst lack of resources or budget
can be a matter of cost constraints, they can also be a result of the
most common answer: lack of buy-in from the C-suite. The perception
that management doesn’t “get” data is still prevalent, and in light
of some of the comments left by respondents, we see evidence
of a divide between IT and Information Management as well. All
signposts point to cultural change as a key driver for data adoption
going forward – the hurdles are not technological, but are centred
around creating alignment of purpose and process among senior
management, IT and data management specialists.
These are gaps that call for increased investment, not in hardware
or software, but in the human element. Enterprises must focus on
creating a culture that places value on influencing skills, emotional
intelligence, communication and collaboration in order to propel their
data efforts forward and realise real results.
CULTURE f “IT push back” f “IT think IM is bogus, that if it’s
not technology, it’s not IT” f “No one understands the business
requirements as they’re too broad to get your head around”
SCALABILITY f “The size of the organisation is the biggest barrier”
f “The complexity of disparate data in a diversified group”
PROCESS f “Poor data quality is the biggest barrier to
wide-scale adoption” f “There’s a disconnect between data
process and understanding”
Lack of buy-in from C-suite/leadership
Lack of resources
Lack of budget
Lack of skills
IM doesn’t understand business requirements
Lack of buy-in from BI users
Hardware issues
Software issues
Other
22.6%
20%
18.3%
11.3%
8.7%
4.3%
2.6%
2.6%
9.6%
The barriers to implementing an
informational Management strategy
‘An organisation that has
successfully embedded IM
strategy into its 5 year growth
plan is Nationwide Building
Society. The Executive
Board acknowledged the
need for a best-in-class IM
function and made it one of
their 10 building blocks for
success. One of the benefits
has been that customer-
facing employees now get a
complete and accurate picture
of clients, allowing them to
proactively suggest products
that make sense for them.’
8. The Data Manager of the future
A data managermust meet very specific, highly
specialised technical requirements. But as is becoming clear, a
truly robust organisation thrives on communication, teamwork,
problem-solving and project/process management.
That’s why enterprises are keen to build teams that can bring
those values to the forefront, and are increasingly interested in
a candidate’s soft skills. It’s a brave new world in which the old
paradigm that power equals influence is being inverted – instead,
as the traditional top-down management model gives way to a
more lateral structure, those with influence will wield more power.
The ideal data manager of the future is strong communicator, with a
solid grasp of the organisation’s needs, sharp commercial acumen,
and the capacity to comprehend big picture challenges – and
visualise solutions.
Where this falls down
Due to this lack of communication skills, we see many
organisations engaging external consultancies to build business
cases for IM projects.
The consequence is that the skills remain with the consultancy and
aren’t transferred to the internal team. If this sounds familiar to
you, consider how to include this knowledge transfer in your next
scope of work.
The importance of long-term vision
We were interested to see a divergence in views on this topic.
While 24% of respondents considered it the most important
quality for data managers to have, 13% thought it least important.
We found it worrying that nearly 1 in 7 respondents appear not to
think data managers need to understand the context of their work
and how it contributes to the organisation at large.
By continuing to engage in recruitment practices that focus solely
on technical skills, companies will miss out on the unlimited
potential of their data efforts.
Technical skills
Data science
Architecture
Analysis
SQL
Big data
Soft skills
Influencing
Long term vision
Listening
Questioning
Adaptability
9. Optimising data quality – it’s not just about process
Tighter controls, stewardshipand governance,
clear methodologies and benchmarks – these are some common
answers to the question “What can we do to improve data quality?”
As might be expected, these types of answers offer valuable insight
into process improvements that must be implemented in order to
optimise data quality.
Whilst quality control over the sourcing, input, processing and
storage of data obviously will remain essential, it’s noteworthy that
the two most effective ways to improve were not process-oriented,
not technological in nature, but once again called for the human
element. Engaging users is considered critical to the success of the
data function, as is creating clear definitions of the business purposes
of data.
As we’ve said before, data is not just about gathering as much
information as possible – it’s about using good information to inform
business decisions that will drive your success as an organisation.
Enterprises must ensure that valuable resources are being allocated
in such a way that data is given the proper framework and context to
drive results.
This cannot happen without communication, consensus and
collaboration from a team with a shared vision. When data is used
well, it creates a momentum, one that will see more stakeholders on
board with the concept that data quality should be the gold standard
for the entire organisation, not just the IT and IM departments.
These results clearly show that organisations are becoming more mature in their approach
to managing data quality, but data professionals shouldn’t rest on their laurels yet, as there
is clearly still some educating to be done. It is encouraging that people are realising that
throwing money at the problem does not improve data quality and engaging the users of the
data is now recognised as one of the most effective methods.
However it is slightly disappointing that organisations are still not fully understanding the
strategic value in implementing data governance/appointing a data stewardship function
and it seems that the short-term tactical fix of cleaning your data is still more popular than it
should be (as opposed to fixing the underlying cause of the problem).
Nicola Askham
The Data Governance Coach
Engaging users of data
Clear definition of what data is needed
Tight controls on how data can be input
Clean your data
Use of a data dictionary
Appoint a data stewardship function
Ensure you have benchmarks for measuring change
Being careful about the use of inputed data
Investment
What are the most
effective ways to
improve data quality?
Rank
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10. Software vendors: make it easy, or lose the sale
In analysing oursurvey results, we didn’t see much to
indicate that technological issues were behind any obstacles to
successful adoption of a data management strategy.
Nevertheless, we wanted to explore what those in the industry were
looking for when choosing new information software.
One thing became abundantly clear – new software must integrate
easily into existing infrastructure and systems. This is far and
away the most important consideration for users, who also want that
same flexibility to extend to customisation options and reporting
functionalities.
Traditional standards such as pricing, the reputation of the vendor,
and additional consulting services are deemed far less important in
this new climate. This could be the result of a plethora of available
products on the market, or a trend toward increasing budgets for data
spend.
Within the self-service data integration market, established players
such as IBM with their PureData offering, Informatica’s Rev product or
Microsoft’s Powerquery for Excel have the marketing clout to give the
specialists such as Trifacta, Paxata and Matillion a run for their money.
Whatever the technology choice though, without establishing and
working within an IT led governance framework, you risk ending up
with silos of data in a similar way that multiple versions of conflicting
data are often found within most businesses’ Excel estate.
Ease of integration
Amount of customisation possible
Reporting functionality
Price
Speed of integration
Reputation of vendor
Availability of external consultancy
What is most important to
you when selecting new
information software?
50%
7.9%
7%
5.3%
12.3%
16.7%
0.9%