10 Fueling business value with data platforms

 

This chapter covers

  • Understanding how the data platform contributes to business value
  • Developing a data strategy for your organization
  • Assessing the analytics maturity of your organization
  • Anticipating and responding to potential “data-platform stoppers”

We wanted to wrap up this book with a chapter on how your carefully designed cloud data platform will be used in a typical enterprise, and in doing so point out why we recommended some of the things we did. We’ll also talk about some of the non-technical parts of an analytics project because a data platform doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it is only a single ingredient of an organization’s quest to become truly data driven and enabled. Knowing how your platform delivers business value in the short and long term is important because it can impact design, and understanding what factors other than technology can influence use of a data platform can help you ensure that your platform becomes an integral and valued part of your organization’s assets.

Note

We want to thank Pythian (www.pythian.com) for the use of the diagrams and frameworks used in this chapter.

10.1 Why you need a data strategy

10.2 The analytics maturity journey

10.2.1 SEE: Getting insights from data

10.2.2 PREDICT: Using data to predict what to do

10.2.3 DO: Making your analytics actionable

10.2.4 CREATE: Going beyond analytics into products

10.3 The data platform: The engine that powers analytics maturity

10.4 Platform project stoppers

10.4.1 Time does indeed kill

10.4.2 User adoption

10.4.3 User trust and the need for data governance

10.4.4 Operating in a platform silo

10.4.5 The dollar dance

Summary