Challenge The Data

In today’s organization, data is a topic discussed at every level. At the Board level, it is breach, internal compliance, and regulatory requirements. At the operational level, it is access, waste, fraud, and abuse and in understating the data types required to efficiently run operations and, in the field, a warehouse, or plant; it is sufficient, timely and accurate information sought to complete a task. It does not matter what you do, the data challenge will always be with us.

Question: What do we do now? Begin by identifying what is important to the organization and how you address the information need today. It starts by understanding all the ways your organization interacts, creates, collects, stores and analyses data and for what purpose.

Stories of failed IT projects and now data analytics projects abound. Do not be tempted to join the chorus.

We produce data with every mouse click. Someone, somewhere, believes it provides insight into productivity re: data entry, others, analyze who is looking at what and when. With a single click, the Data Tsunami begins; we add to each ripple without truly understanding how this plays out in the bigger organizational challenge of what to collect, store, process and manage.

Data preservation policies, once developed, can be a wonderful guide of what to preserve and for how long. However, it is always day forward. Add to this the complexity of the digital age and you hear terms such as velocity, volume, and of course Big Data. Entire eco-systems are being funded to help us understand how this will affect our organization being. As with every new ecosystem, new tools of the trade emerge, and data scientists become the new hot profession. This is wonderful and for those who understand using a well-trained data scientist to interpret useful business information. What drives us all nuts is when we see lips moving but nothing useful is explained or produced. With the dawn of the new age of Internet of Things or IoT; it just got a lot more interesting and complex.

 This leads us to the conversation of speed of access. From drone delivery, to sub-second response, once the realm of NASA engineers and financial engineers on Wall Street, it is now us. Bundled in this simple statement are professionals using and developing complex algorithms not just to cure cancer but help us pick the right shoes. Your organization is more than likely to be on both sides of this spectrum: consumption and generation.

These occurrences challenge the organizations ability to manage data as it streams through the network. Securing the network, secures the data. Securing the network for other reasons, while very important, always remember, it is your information assets, preferably digital, which differentiates you and it begins with data. Therefore, traceability and theft prevention became relevant topics for those who think about, data at rest, and data in motion.

As with each click we begin to create value for our enterprises, let us all begin the journey of transforming this effort while thinking about our customers, who they are, what they do and how we can enhance their lives, but you say, we already do that, great. Now, think how they wish to meet you in the world of commerce and you really know who they are.

This is the conversation of digital transformation; it is understanding your customer.

 Written by Desh Urs

?Desh Urs brings over 20 years of entrepreneurial, start-up and Global 500 corporate experience in sales, marketing, and general management to the customers of iBridge. He has led sales organizations as SVP at Qsent, Inc. and VP at Acxiom Corporation, and has focused on the usage of data in data distribution, direct marketing, fraud prevention, and law enforcement.

As a Vice President of Global Sales, Services, and Marketing at Silicon Graphics, Inc., Urs managed engineering and non-engineering functions, developing solutions in sciences, telecommunications, manufacturing, media, business, and defense intelligence, for companies with revenues of several billion dollars. During his tenure as Vice President at Think Tools AG and Brio Technology, Inc., he ran business development and alliances providing solutions in Business Intelligence and Decisions Cycle Management to Global 100 corporations worldwide. In the late 1980s, Urs founded Indus Systems, Inc., which he profitably sold to a systems integration company. 

As founder of iBridge he designed the business to help customers jump-start business initiatives.

iBridge organizes and manages critical business information required in strategic and tactical decisions. Customers are well funded startups to F-500 companies. 650+ employees touch every aspect of the decision-making cycle, from customer acquisition to delivery, from process to technology.

Urs serves on several Advisory Boards and as a Board member in the United States and India.