THE EVER EXPANDING DATA FOOTPRINT

We are exceptionally privileged right now to be working with an amazing client and their teams on the ground.

We are working on a critical ERP implementation for the business, something that will change the way the organisation runs and does business.

Our part in this implementation, initially was the data migration – no small part we all recognise, but no more important that the new business capabilities being successfully delivered.

What has become more apparent as the programme moves forward is that there are substantial gaps in data management capabilities, like many growing organisations, that are needed to ensure data has its rightful place within the new world.

With the clients support we are now moving forward to define the foundational data management capabilities to ensure they succeed in moving towards being a data driven business, making fact-based decisions with a supporting confidence level in the data that will underpin those.

What started as a migration and governance piece, has now moved on to include metadata management, document management, data quality and elements of data security. master data and data modelling.

Like any growing organisation, a maturity assessment is never an easy thing to digest, especially when like most others I have seen, they show good intent, but not necessarily execution capabilities.

Our client is embracing this data management approach and change whole heartedly, with the right caveats, that we walk before we can run and that we as a partnership embed what is needed to progress to the next level of maturity and support a successful ERP implementation – providing foundational data management processes, frameworks and policies to build upon for the future.

What is going to make it a success?

The people. The teams we are working with are an exceptionally talented bunch of people. Their business knowledge is second to none and it is these individuals who are embracing change. They are guiding us on what works for them, what they believe to be the right things to do for their business.

As Bruce Lee once said, “Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless and add what is specifically your own.”

We have embedded ourselves into the teams – and with their guidance and our data management knowledge, frameworks and approach we are moving forward at a fantastic pace. 

We share our approaches, frameworks and practices with the teams, we have set up data steering groups for decision making, data ownership is being implemented, governance roles, processes and polices to support key data management capabilities.

All of these will evolve as the business grows, changes and adapts to the new world. The teams on the ground will run and manage all these eventually – becoming the data management functions and owners as we move forward.

I started off this piece with the words “We are exceptionally privileged” and I genuinely mean that, every day on this programme has been great, We are learning more and more about the capabilities of the people we work with and much like ours, their passion for data and how important it is to the business to function. As our data footprint grows, the business capability on data can only ever get better.