Learning from successful data-centric strategies in 2023

The use and sharing of data moved center stage in 2023, with organizations across the world increasingly embracing data and becoming more data-centric.?

Whatever the sector, businesses and public sector organizations understand the benefits that increased data sharing brings in terms of greater efficiency, innovation, collaboration and transparency.?

Based on the experiences of our customers, here are five key learnings around becoming more data-centric that everyone can implement in 2024.

Key learning 1: The importance of the data portal to drive impact?

Despite their large-scale investments in data tools and infrastructure, many organizations struggle to industrialize their use of data, with usage confined to experts, rather than being democratized across their ecosystems. Overcoming this requires organizations to implement centralized, comprehensive data portals , built on intuitive, self-service interfaces that make it simple for everyone to access data assets and unlock the full value of data.

The Emirate of Ajman provides the perfect example of this approach. Its Ajman Data open data portal brings together key information from across government departments and makes it available to the local community, international investors, businesses and government departments in engaging and compelling ways. This includes a focus on initiatives to improve sustainability, tourism, inward investment and deliver new services to residents and businesses. Read more on the Emirate of Ajman here .

Key learning 2: Why interoperability drives success

Data is generated across organizations and ecosystems in a wide variety of systems and formats. Raw data delivers little value - it has to be connected and integrated before it can be made available to all. This means that ensuring that your data stack is interoperable and works together seamlessly in an automated way is vital. Using APIs is crucial to building these successful data pipelines, moving data between systems to deliver real synergies and get a holistic picture of data assets.

To remain competitive in a rapidly changing market and to aid decarbonization, digital energy and automation leader Schneider Electric wanted to collect and share its internal data with its partner ecosystem. To achieve this, it created its Exchange platform, a data services marketplace which brings together a wide variety of data assets (including APIs, analytics and datasets) and digital tools and expertise. This enables partners to create their own uses for data, enhancing collaboration and driving innovation. Learn more about Schneider Electric here .

Key learning 3: Measure the ROI of data use to demonstrate success

Every business program needs to deliver ongoing benefits, meaning that showing the ROI of data projects is essential. Organizations need to be able to measure which data assets are most popular and how and where they are being reused across their ecosystems. That enables data leaders to demonstrate value and unlock further investment.?

Opendatasoft’s data lineage tool is designed to provide the metrics that matter. It allows organizations to better understand how their data is used internally and externally, across data ecosystems. UK Power Networks uses data lineage to see what its datasets are being reused for, and who is using them amongst its diverse open data community. This helps it better plan its strategy and roadmap for releasing new datasets. Read our blog to learn about the benefits of data lineage .

Key learning 4: The importance of including external data in your strategy

The growth in the number and variety of external data sources available enables organizations to enrich their own data assets and transform their usefulness and impact. From official demographic and company data to mapping and geographic information, external datasets add context and enable deeper understanding of customers and processes, as well as enabling organizations to create new, data-driven services and innovations.?

Insurance company Lamie Mutuelle is focused on using data to drive its business forward. It shares data through a comprehensive data hub that feeds decision-making dashboards, 360° views, CRM, and customer apps. External data is crucial to success, with Lamie Mutuelle enriching its data with sources including the complete list of French companies, the official classification of medical conditions, and data on all deaths in France since 1970. This adds significant value, and improves internal customer knowledge. Learn more about how leading companies are using external data in our blog .

Key learning 5: Use AI to boost you data management stack

The rise of AI has been the technology and business story of 2023, and has confirmed the importance to organizational success of collecting, understanding and maximizing the value of data. As well as relying on data to operate, AI also has a key role to play in improving how data management stacks operate, increasing efficiency, ease of use, and innovation.

Opendatasoft’s new semantic search feature leverages AI to transform the search experience on data portals. It makes it easier for users to find what they are looking for through its vector model-based technology which understands the meaning and context of queries. It also flags data which they may not be aware of, but which is relevant for their purpose and suggests results in real-time, as users type, dramatically cutting the time taken to find relevant data. Read more about semantic search in our blog .

As we move into the new year we look forward to working with our customers and partners to build on this year’s successes and increase data-centricity and data democratization across the world. Seasons Greetings and see you in 2024!

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