Today, companies are moving at the speed of thought, moving the needle on the KPIs for the outcomes that make them great companies. Great companies provide optimized customer experience management (CX) and operational excellence (OX), not to mention accurate, real-time reporting with full transparency of information to stakeholders.
Provisioning all this excellence requires a digital transformation. About every decade, going back in time to the first missions to the moon, technologies have transformed the way business is conducted. Briefly specialized computers, mainframes, client/server, the internet, desktop computing, laptops, smartphones, tablets, and now, the new, critical pillars of any IT strategy; in-memory computing, cloud, IoT, mobility, AI, predictive analytics, and so on. Looking forward, technology continues to change the future in terms of the creative new business models and potential for business growth with a focus on efficiencies – all enabled by this new push to improve CX and OX.
Companies are doing this via digital transformation and their move to S/4HANA. Coupled to this are integrated in-memory capabilities to improve the customer experience, operational excellence, HR management, supplier management, services management, financial reporting … [fill in].
The foundation of any digital transformation is a good data strategy. Go back five decades, and looking forward to only two decades, one can quickly see how computing and data have evolved – but one thing is certain, without the right data, nothing computes. You can invest $100M into technology, but if you haven’t stopped to take a look at your business process end-to-end, and haven’t considered the “hidden data factory” that has existed for years, and if you haven’t ameliorated the reasons for bad data getting into your process, and into your business systems, then you might as well invest that $100M in more people to continue running that hidden data factory, so you can run faster with faster, more highly interconnected business systems, because you’ll still have the “corrective action” factory running around putting out fires, all day, every day. That’s the hidden cost of doing business.
How do we fix this? Well, plan out your data strategy to keep in step with your business and IT roadmap, say 3, 5, and 10 years out, and refresh this every year. Part of this might include some value assessment today, as well as 1, 3, 5, and 10 years out – so you have a lens on likely outcomes that you WANT to achieve. Next, lay out a plan of action to determine if your data is good enough to help you with those planned-for and invested-in outcomes. And if it is not good enough (and it probably is not), then plan to fix your data. You also have to figure out how to sustain this useful, clean data going forward, to avoid the same kinds of problems from reoccurring. So, get your data clean and keep your data clean. Data is the foundation of any digital transformation and is the fundamental common denominator in companies that achieve excellence in business, who have the intent to be transformational and who are transforming the world. Data is a transformational force multiplier.
Utopia offers a full suite of data services to help with your journey, no matter where you are in the process. For more information, please download our brochure or visit: https://www.utopiainc.com/services.
To learn more about how to keep your data clean and accurate post-migration, view Utopia’s full suite of industry leading data governance software solutions by visiting: HTTPS://WWW.UTOPIAINC.COM/SAP
