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insight

When the Economist declared in 2017 that data was now more valuable than oil , it suggested more sinister parallels between these two resources and the exploitations of big business. In the subsequent years, data management has grown in recognition of importance for creating trust and security around data use, but many businesses have been slow to adopt the practice. However, the unprecedented reliance upon digital initiatives in response to the ongoing pandemic requires increased awareness of data management and governance now more than ever. Afterall, digital transformation programmes are accelerating with the unifying aim of ensuring business resilience in the new world of remote working. Leaders need to be confident that their risk mitigation systems stem from accurate, comprehensible, and compliant sources of data to protect their business, rather than undermine it.

So how can transforming businesses maintain confidence and trust in their data whilst rapidly promoting its use across the organisation?

Mark Thacker, Principal Data Management Consultant at Kubrick, explains:

"With COVID came a rude awakening for those companies who had previously relied upon diligent people to gather, collate, and clean data. The pressure on or removal of these people has exposed the underlying poor data management processes, and the recognition that to remain competitive (or even viable), companies need to promote the importance of data management to the same league as logistics, marketing, and finance. There is no silver bullet solution, but rather continually fostering a culture of learning and awareness of the importance of data. The key ingredients are:

Collaboration: across functions, data teams and technology. Working together to optimise the flow of data from creation to consumption.

Empowerment: supporting analytical functions to serve their own needs quickly by recognising freedom comes with responsibilities.

Simplicity: make it easy for people to understand and trust the data, remove complexity, and recognise and promote good behaviours towards data, by doing the right things right."

Skills: the next big resource

As businesses of all sizes increase their engagement with data, the subsequent commodity to grow in value is the people who can manage this data: its lineage and flow, quality, governance, and the key to unlocking master and metadata. However, the skills for this new language and practice are currently in short supply and high demand. At Kubrick Group, we built a Hire-Train-Deploy model to bridge a chasm between costly digital transformations and the skills-gap which we already knew existed prior to the pandemic – we just didn’t know how quickly the chasm would expand. In the current climate, it is all the more important that investing in data management is done with minimal risk and maximum sustainability. We consider the components of this dilemma that we solve to be threefold:

  1. Finding the right skills
  2. Keeping cost and risk low
  3. Retaining talent and IP

Despite the turbulence of the coronavirus pandemic, the importance of data management and its place at the heart of every data team stands firm. The rapid digitisation of functions across all industries, in tandem with the demands of remote working, has revealed an even greater increase in the value of data for businesses than previously predicted. Ensuring data is of the best quality and is managed correctly should become a high priority for all teams across the business. Without this focus, companies will fail to understand the true extent of their current and anticipated risks and obstacles.

We want to hear from you! To learn more about how Kubrick’s data management consultants could help with your digital transformation challenges, please get in touch: speaktous@kubrickgroup.com