Currently, organisations have access to more data than ever before. However, this data cannot be used to its full advantage if it cannot be identified, located, and established if it can be trusted, writes Gary Allemann, MD of Master Data Management.
An effective data catalogue and governance programme can turn that around. This will be critical as we move from the Age of Big Data and personalisation to the Age of the Connected Individual in 2020 where data and how it is used will determine your competitiveness.
Defeating data chaos
According to Gartner, “Information is the oil of the 21st century and analytics is the combustion engine,” and although data has huge value, it is only valuable if it is useful.
Data chaos is the product of the greater volume of data companies are dealing with, the diversity of sources it comes from and the many different ways that it is coming into the organisation. What we need to do is create knowledge from our data and use that knowledge to drive actions.
So how do you take back control of your data? Data cataloguing, data governance and similar data management techniques bring order to data chaos.
At present, many organisations are spending a fortune on technology to access data – the big data platforms, social media tools and Internet of Things (IoT) — but less on the tools and processes needed to properly organise the data so it can be consumed and used by all these technologies.
In order to use catalogues properly and derive new value from their organisation’s information assets, we recommend:
* Use a modern information catalogue to curate the inventory of information assets.
* Build on the information catalogue by tracking analytic outcomes and realised business benefits.
* Use smart data discovery tools to augment and enhance the information catalogue.
How important is it to get this right now?
Data and the competitive edge
Personal data is the new asset class; it fuels society and economies globally. Researchers predict that:
* By 2020, there will be 10 connected devices per individual.
* By 2022, there will be 50 connected devices per household.
* By 2025, there will be up to 500-billion connected devices worldwide.
From the masses of data now available to us, serving clients in what Google describes as their ‘micro moments of need’ has become the basis of competition. Massively collecting incredible amounts of structured and unstructured data, getting it into play, starting to analyse it and putting different algorithms to work, and using artificial intelligence (AI) learning to deliver services to a customer at the right moment is becoming vital. Nevertheless, the evolution is far from over. With it will come more sophisticated requirements around data management and use.
By combining descriptive, implicit, explicit, contextual and intimate data, companies will uncover derived data and insight, which drives predictive responses. This is the Age of Big Data. As data continues to proliferate, we will see the rise of the Personal Information Economy. It’s an age in which individuals are becoming wary of sharing their data due to concerns around trust and privacy. In 2020, the Age of the Connected Individual will come into its own.
This is a world in which business moves from selling goods and services to partnering with individuals to help them realise their goals.
In the Age of the Connected Individual, individuals will provide access to personal information in exchange for value. Competitiveness will not, as now, be based on realising the commercial opportunity that personalisation offers; it will be about serving the connected individual as an individual, creating value for and with that individual, at scale, and on the individual’s terms.
So how do we leverage data and do it on the individual’s terms?
* Enable your business today with the right services, tools and solutions.
* Begin to experiment and enhance the operations with new and evolving capabilities tools and analytic mechanisms coming into play.
* Begin to evolve your business to participate in age of the connected individual.
The right platform to build the data catalogue
Before any business can use, secure and monetise its data, it needs to know its data. The right platform will allow your whole business to easily find, understand and trust your data.
At Master Data Management we trust in software platforms like Collibra – helping organisations build their data catalogue with all the right structures and policies in place. Offering assistance by making data more accessible, providing apps for business users that enable anyone in the organisation to make use of the businesses data and become a participant in the data process of the organisation.