How to Harness Data to Drive Digital Transformation

The currency of digital transformation is data. When organizations embark on their digital transformation journey to better harness all that digital technology has to offer, it is usually with the express purpose of becoming more customer-centric, more competitive and more agile. The fuel that powers this transformation is data.

Data is disrupting YOUR business

Big data analytics is not new, but the pressure is increasing on organizations to capitalize on the treasure trove of data they possess. Where once they regarded data as a storage issue and a cost center, now digital demands that data is at the core of decision-making. For that to happen, the way businesses collect, manage and use the data needs to be handled intelligently.

The volume of data businesses churn out is growing at a dizzying pace and getting a fairly basic handle on their data has historically been seen as ‘good enough’. That way of thinking just does not cut it. Data science is re-writing the rules of what’s possible and there is no way to avoid disruption.

Drowning in data

The challenge most organizations face is taming their data. It can feel like too much is being created from too many sources too quickly. For a start, data is everywhere – structured and unstructured – and most of it goes unused. Next, a major stumbling block is that data tends to be housed in disparate formats and locations that do not easily talk to one another. Finally, as the boundaries of what is possible with data move all the time, organizations understandably have trouble keeping up with the changing requirements in terms of formats, analytics tools, and visualizations. 

Putting data to work

What we hear time and again from customers and prospects is that they want meaningful data that is easy to access quickly. They want their data to inform their business decisions rather than be analyzed retrospectively as part of the reporting process. They are also aware that big data initiatives have in the past promised a great deal and delivered considerably less. Gartner estimated in 2016 that 60% of data projects will fail, and then a year later, revised the figure up to a project failure rate of 85%. Hardly an encouraging state of affairs.  

It is possible to succeed at putting data to work in your organization and we can show you how with real-world stories of businesses overcoming diverse data challenges to create actionable insights. For example, Apexon worked with a location services provider to deliver a multi-tenant data aggregation platform. Or this example, where we worked with a digital healthcare company to cut the dev / QA cycle by 40% through automated records and predictive analysis.

Drivers for success

When assessing a data engineering partner for a big data project, track record, and success stories are important factors in the decision to work with one company over another. In our experience, however, each enterprise’s IT and data systems and challenges are different and of course, so are their goals. Which is why we also pride ourselves on the depth and breadth of our experience. At Apexon, we have worked at the forefront of data aggregation and analysis for 15 years. We have a deep understanding of the leading technology tool providers and we are consulting partners and advanced technology partners in the Amazon Web Services Partner Network. We understand the business, financial and technical drivers organizations need to unlock the insights their data holds.

Here is what organizations can reasonably expect a data engineering project to deliver:

• Improved data quality, resulting in data that can be analyzed with less time and effort
• A better understanding of customers and partners
• Ability to make faster, more informed decisions.
• Ability to turn disparate data into actionable intelligence.

If there is room for improvement in the way your organization collects and analyzes data, or if you are looking to re-examine the role data is playing in your company’s digital transformation, then we would love to hear from you. Fill out the form below.