PETALING JAYA: Businesses should have a data strategy that is centred around specific use cases to ensure that they have the relevant parameters to assist a precise and efficient decision-making process.
No doubt, data has become increasingly central to an organisation’s operations.
And if organisations can define their use case, they will be able to focus on collecting, aggregating and cleaning data sets that are applicable.
“Organisations in the past mistakenly stored everything. But if you start with a business case, and you define the relevant data sets that are applicable to that business case, you will be taking advantage of the data sets that are absolutely true to what you are trying to achieve,” said Daniel Clarke, Informatica’s head of cloud and analytics APJ.
Additionally, with a myriad of tools and technologies available today, companies may opt to test their use cases within a smaller setting – a department, for example – at a nominal cost, and with no hardware or infrastructure footprint. Once they see the return on investment and get the buy-in from more users, they can then scale it up to the rest of the organisation.
Clarke was among the panellists who spoke at the exclusive “CxO Virtual Dialogue: Driving Business Value from Data in the Cloud” on Feb 24.
The dialogue, organised by Star Media Group and Informatica, was moderated by Asohan Aryaduray, Star Media Group’s senior news editor.
Goh Hai Peow, group chief information and digital officer in Sime Darby Bhd concurred with Clarke’s views.
Goh also said that merely trying to improve data quality without identifying the use case for the data would not yield improvements in return on investment.
However, Mohd Salem Kailany, president and chief executive officer of UDA Holdings Bhd pointed out that collecting additional data that may not be entirely relevant to the current use case should not be seen as a problem.
“For data to be seen as valuable, it needs to fulfil the needs of the business. Getting the ‘noise’ along with valuable input is normal. But what’s important is that the person managing the data should be able to form a conclusion for a decision to be made.”
According to Salem, noise is also considered data in the bigger picture but organisations should prioritise which data they use to make decisions given the amount of irrelevant data that they are bound to collect as well. What is valuable, he added, is being able to identify the trend that will enable managers to make a decision.
Apart from a clear use case, companies should also plan out their data security measures in terms of identifying personnel who will have access rights to particular data sets, putting in place a system that allows the tracking of who accessed what data and when, as well as proactive monitoring that will flag and investigate any breaches or anomalies.
“Make sure you’ve got clearly defined security principles in place. This is part of the nature of moving towards self-service because we’ve got more people having access to data than there were in the past,” said Clarke.
He also observed that there is an increasing move towards decentralised data, whereby certain columns or data elements are stored in a place and shared across the organisation while those that are more relevant to a certain department can remain there.
Richard Bururu, regional head of decision management in CIMB Bank Bhd, shared that the banking group is also looking into this strategy.
“We are looking at how to move from an on-premise architecture to a hybrid one. And the reason for that is around cost.
“The current architecture that we have where everything is on premise, you have to scale your storage when you want to scale up your compute power even if you don’t need it. So, the cost goes up as we scale across more use cases.
“But when we put them on the cloud, the compute power becomes pay-as-you-use. So, we are going to strike that balance over the next two to three years,” he said.
Bururu also highlighted that the bank encountered several challenges when it embarked on its data investment.
“The first challenge was around the organisational structure. Where does this sit? Is it within IT, business or finance? Who should own this area?
“The second was sponsorship. Who should sponsor it? Then, how do we make sure we have the right infrastructure in place?”
Notably, the challenges for businesses will not get easier as technology continues to evolve and new solutions emerge. Additionally, organisations will have to ensure that their staff are trained to manage data in a changing environment.
Nonetheless, Clarke noted that there are more tools available today to help companies with cataloguing, understanding, storing, securing and governing their data.
This will empower more organisations to catch up with the data trends in their industries and allow them to be on par with more digitally sophisticated companies.
You can hear from nearly 900 global data leaders on what they are prioritising in their data management strategy in IDC Global Chief Data Officer (CDO) Engagement Survey 2021 sponsored by Informatica.