Getting the plumbing right, or creating a data framework to give it a more suitable name, is an essential prerequisite for enterprise digital transformation
Modern business is all about customer-centricity. It’s about personalised services supported by smart, automated processes behind the scenes. Rising expectations require the modern businesses to be always on, omnipresent and predictive rather than reactive in responding to changes in needs and preferences.
This is true not just of the familiar « digital leaders », but increasingly of more traditional companies and public service providers too.
As the figure below – drawn from a Computing study within 120 large organisations in public and private sectors – shows, meeting customer expectations is the main driving force behind moving from analogue to digital, but it is far from the only competitive pressure. The emergence of disruptors in their sector, as well as the arrival of new technologies are additional factors that mean that no organisation can afford to stand still.
Underpinning the shiny new reactive digital services is something a little less glamorous – the efficient management and utilisation of data. Without a 365-degree view of customer data personalisation of experiences is limited. Without data quality management automated processes can turn into manual exception handling or give unpredictable outcomes. And without the ability to integrate data between systems the age-old problem of information silos rears its ugly head, shattering the illusion of omnipresence and efficiency.
As « digitalisation » moves outwards from its online roots to encompass many more aspects of the business, so the physical bricks and mortar world gets pulled into its logic. From augmented reality in industrial equipment maintenance to picking up your online grocery order from the retailer’s premises, enabling the movement of data between systems and making it conveniently available for users is quickly becoming a basic requirement for businesses.
This can be seen as getting the enterprise data plumbing right: Just as water flows from reservoirs via various pumping stations through pipes and into homes, so data must be able to flow through the enterprise to where it’s needed, and like water it needs to be purified on the way. However, like the pipes that run under our floorboards, data flows are often out of sight and only make themselves noticed when there’s a blockage or a leak in the system.
Getting the plumbing right, or creating a data framework to give it a more suitable name, is an essential prerequisite for enterprise digital transformation.
How best to combine the various elements that make up enterprise IT architecture to allow data to flow where it’s needed will be the subject of a forthcoming Computing web seminar entitled Creating the data foundation for business digitalisation
