data-jan-episode1
BLOG
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Finding a Way in the Data Labyrinth – Episode 1 - Why to Start the Data Modernization Journey?

Home / Explore / Blog posts / Finding a Way in the Data Labyrinth – Episode 1 - Why to Start the Data Modernization Journey?

Companies are moving from the traditional huge data centers to a more organized way of looking at data. With data being the fuel for most businesses to survive, it is important that businesses invest in a modern data infrastructure. Let me guide you through a journey that unravels the intricacies, offering a clear route to leveraging data modernization as a transformative force within your business strategy.

Let's cut right to the chase: Data and AI-powered organizations are more profitable and generate more revenue on average per employee. One obvious thing is that data represents value, and the companies that can exploit this value have a competitive advantage. So, every CEO, CFO, or CIO should have plans to develop and roll out a first-division data strategy to use this richness and make his company a data powerhouse.

So far, so good, nothing complicated, nothing new, all logical. But how to do this? This question gives many managers sleepless nights, wondering how they will choose between different architectures, tools, and governance methods, how they will transform the organization culture, and change their collaborator's thinking. And what is even more important: where to find the budget and resources to deliver? It is like standing before the gates of a big labyrinth, with no beautiful Crete princess in sight that can help the Data Hero with a golden thread to find his way to the data treasure (no minotaur, this is a mythological beast-friendly article).  

Creating a data philosophy that makes an organization data-driven is not an easy task. Any existing data architecture is mainly due to the consequences of answering short-term business demands, emergency solutions, and strategy changes made by the management. In plenty of cases, this leads to data silos, spiderwebs of interfaces, crooked governance, and a large catalog of IT tools. And, of course, there is no documentation in sight! To change all this into a mean and streamlined data machine can look frightening.

So, what makes an organization data-powered?
Data-powered organizations have a certain degree of maturity in each of the sectors in the visual below:

Where to start? The next episode of this blog will explain how one can navigate the data evolution and the steps a data-modernization plan should contain.

Coming soon: Episode 2 - How to Navigate the Data Evolution?

 

 

Jan-Claes
Jan Claes
Data Solution Architect, Sogeti Luxembourg
Jan-Claes
Jan Claes
Data Solution Architect, Sogeti Luxembourg

With more than 25 years of experience in data projects, Jan, from a close proximity, has seen the evolution of primitive data warehouses to the huge quantities of data processing behemoths that allows the creation of semi-intelligent machines that can disrupt existing business processes.

In a very modest way, he contributed to this great change by working on plenty of data projects in different roles and all over the world. Jan wants to use his experiences to help organizations in their quest to become data-driven and, at last, use the huge potential of their data to their benefit.

As a Dutch speaking Belgian who works in Luxembourg and lives in France, Jan has also mastered the art of combining the impossible, which is a great help in his daily work!