Unleashing the Power of Gen AI: Why Your Data Estate Needs to Be Ready

By Sandip Gupta and Tyler Buffie

The landscape of business is undergoing a radical transformation driven by Gen AI. This powerful technology holds the potential to revolutionize every aspect of operations, from product development and marketing to supply chain management and customer service. However, before you embark on your Gen AI journey, it's crucial to ensure your data estate is prepared to unlock the full potential of this technology.?

Addressing Your Data Challenges for Successful Gen AI Initiatives with Accenture and Google

Many companies struggle to effectively utilize their data for Gen AI due to:

• Scattered Data Silos: Current data infrastructure might be fragmented across on-premise systems, making it difficult to centralize and manage for AI projects.
• Legacy Constraints: Existing data structures may be designed for limitations not present in the cloud, hindering scalability and agility needed for AI.
• Limited Access Control: Difficulty in establishing clear and secure access points for various data users can slow down innovation and raise security concerns.

Accenture's Expertise in Overcoming Data Hurdles for Gen AI:

Here's how Accenture, in partnership with Google Cloud, can help you address these challenges:

• Data Strategy & Assessment: Our experts work with you to assess your current data landscape, identify data silos, and develop a comprehensive strategy for migrating and managing your data for optimal AI utilization.
• Cloud Migration & Modernization: Leveraging proven methodologies and tools, Accenture seamlessly migrates your data workloads to GCP, ensuring a smooth transition and modernization of your data infrastructure for superior scalability and performance.
• Security & Governance: We prioritize data security throughout the migration process, implementing robust access controls and governance frameworks on GCP to safeguard your data and enable secure collaboration within your AI initiatives.

Benefits of Utilizing Accenture and GCP for Your Gen AI Journey:

• Centralized Control: Establish a central data hub (data estate) on GCP with improved organization and access management, streamlining AI initiatives with Accenture's guidance.
• Cloud-Native Scalability: Move beyond legacy constraints. Accenture helps you leverage GCP's cloud-based architecture to seamlessly scale your data infrastructure with your AI needs.
• Enhanced Security: Benefit from GCP's robust security features and Accenture's expertise in implementing granular access controls for your data, ensuring secure collaboration and compliance.

By partnering with Accenture and migrating to GCP, you can unlock the full potential of your data,accelerate your journey towards successful AI implementations, and gain a competitive advantage.

Why Data Platforms Matter

Imagine building a magnificent skyscraper without a solid foundation. That's the equivalent of attempting Gen AI initiatives without a robust data strategy and platform. Your data is the building block for any AI project, and its quality, accessibility, and management determine the success of your endeavors.?

Benefits of a Modern Data Platform:

By establishing a modern data platform on the cloud, you can expect several significant advantages:

• Accelerated Time to Market: Achieve a 40% faster time to market for your AI initiatives through efficient data management and access.
• Enhanced Revenue Growth: Studies reveal that data-driven companies experience a 10-15% higher revenue growth compared to competitors.
• Cost Optimization: Modernization can lead to a 30% reduction in the total cost of ownership (TCO) of your data platform and services.
• Faster Innovation: Streamlined data processes enable a 90% reduction in time-to-market for developing and deploying new use cases, fueling innovation.
• Improved Data Governance: Modern platforms empower you to mitigate data governance risks and burdens by up to 30-50%.
• Unlocking Gen AI Potential: A modern data estate empowers you to fully leverage the potential of your analytics and Gen AI projects, driving significant business value.

Understanding Your Data Landscape

It is essential to have a clear understanding of your current data landscape as you are embarking and actively executing modernization efforts. Here's what you need to consider:

• Data Sources: Identify where your data originates. This includes internal systems like CRM, ERP, and marketing platforms, as well as external sources like social media and public datasets.
• Don’t Rebuild- Reuse: Leverage existing market leading Pre-Built AI & ML Industry Use Cases spanning cross-industry functionality, including: ai.Retail, Supply Chain, MxDR (Security), Cloud + Ads, Processing AI?
• Data Storage and Management: Understand where your data resides and how it's managed. This encompasses various data warehouses, data lakes, and other storage solutions, along with the tools and processes used to ensure data quality and security.
• Data Lineage and Governance: Gen AI holds the potential to automate data lineage tracking, enforce real-time governance policies, and make autonomous decisions based on semantic understanding, transforming how organizations manage and utilize their data assets.
• Data Pipeline for Gen AI: Analyze your current data pipeline and identify any bottlenecks or gaps that might hinder efficient data flow for AI applications. This includes data processing, transformation, and integration steps.

Making Your Data Estate Gen AI-Ready

Now that you have a clear picture of your data landscape, it's time to make it AI-ready. Here are a few crucial aspects to address:

Data Estate Migration:

• Understanding the best way to utilize data and provide the right access is very challenging: Many companies are finding that a migration to the cloud is more than a “lift and shift”, as they designed their current structures around constraints that Cloud environments do not have.?
• Migrate data workloads to Google Cloud Platform (GCP): This enables you to establish centralized control points for your data estate, leading to faster time to market for AI initiatives. Examples include migrating on-premise databases to Cloud SQL, and data warehouse/data lake solutions to GCP.

Data Estate Modernization:

• Are you familiar with the term “Tech Debt” or “Legacy Platforms” – you aren’t alone, this is a rising challenge many companies face as they see other digital native companies built on Cloud based platforms from the onset. That said, the potential of embracing those new digital cores has far reaching impacts to companies.
• Embrace the potential of new digital cores: Leverage GCP's advanced technologies and Accenture's expertise in Data & AI to unlock the true value of your data within a modern digital core. This encompasses various aspects, such as replatforming data warehouses and data lakes, utilizing data mesh and data fabric architectures, and implementing microservices for efficient data extraction. The Google Distributed Suite of products, including big query, dataproc, data flow, dataplex, and vertex AI are instrumental in achieving transformation. Additionally, Open Cloud Configuration empowers you to integrate seamlessly with diverse platforms like SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, and operate in a multi-cloud environment.

How We Do This: Accenture Services

Gen AI will reinvent the way work is done across the enterprise. We have partnered to combine Google’s renowned AI technology and Accenture’s industry leading expertise and industry, functional and horizontal assets to support our clients.

We have 3 Gen-AI Led Engagement Offerings:

• Data & AI Strategy and Insights: Leverages data & AI powered insights to assist C-Level executives in transforming their business and creating business value by defining the AI Strategy and re-usable data products to reduce time to market & increase scalability.?
• AI & ML Platforms & Engineering: Accelerates the journey to enterprise-wide scaled AI and innovation through support for AI architecture and governance services to design, build and operationalization of tailored AI applications and platforms.?
• Generative AI: Enables enterprises to quickly and responsibly build Generative AI apps and accelerate ML by combining Google’s renowned AI technology and Accenture’s industry leading expertise and industry, functional and horizontal assets.

Where We’ve Transformed Data Estate?

At General Mills, Accenture and Google Cloud came together to deliver a modernized tech foundation, enabling teams, strategic revenue management, and supply chain digitization while enhancing resiliency and scalability of its data and technology platforms.

General Mills had outgrown its on-premise data and analytic ecosystem. This resulted in a sub-optimal analytic experience due to performance issues and limited capabilities. The company needed to modernize its underlying foundation, and refresh its approach to data management, data governance, roles, and pipeline processes (discover, ingest, transform, and load). General Mills also wanted to be certain whatever technology it invested in was highly scalable for its own business needs and backed by a trusted company with a reputation for continuous innovation that would be a partner for decades to come. "We didn’t just need a place to store or consume data, we wanted a collaborator that could help us scale the most advanced data management in the industry," said Jaime Montemayor, Chief Digital & Technology Officer at General Mills.

"When we looked at our own road map and at the Google Cloud AI and machine learning road map, we recognized we were moving in the same direction," added Jason Staloch, General Mills’ VP of Digital Core. Read more here .

Let us support your Gen AI Efforts Today

Investing in data estate capture and modernization is not just an option, but a necessity in the age of Gen AI. By laying a strong data foundation, you empower your organization to embrace the transformative power of AI, unlocking new frontiers of growth and innovation.

Contact Accenture Google Business Group Leadership (Sandip Gupta Jimmy Priestas Tyler Buffie ) today to discover, assess and plan how Accenture’s Data and Gen AI knowledge can help you transform your business.

To learn more about our Accenture and Google Cloud partnership, please visit: accenture.com/google