Category: Data Strategy

How to deliver a successful data strategy presentation to the board

In today’s fast-paced business landscape, the pursuit of data-driven excellence has become a common theme. Companies large and small are eager to extract more value from their data and make smarter, more informed decisions. CEOs and executives have embraced the importance of data, recognising it as a key driver of success. However, the path to…

What is the environmental impact of your data?

There is Something Human about Waste Let’s start by setting the scene – an all too familiar one. Humans love waste. We throw away around 100 billion pieces of plastic every year in the UK, and around 1.9 billion tonnes of food that can be eaten is discarded on an annual basis, and even on…

Sometimes a Target Operating Model is all the fix you need.

When you try your best but you don’t succeed; it’s strategy that you want but not what you need…  We thought we’d switch to a bit of Indie-Brit-Pop plagiarism for this blog, considering it relates to fixing things. In our previous blog, we covered the first two pain points experienced by businesses implementing their strategy…

Will the real Data Strategy please stand up!? 

We don’t have a particular affinity with 00’s hip-hop. But we tend to hear something like this when data projects admit they are in difficulty or aren’t getting traction. It’s generally the data strategy that’s to blame, right?  Not in our experience.   Don’t get me wrong, the data strategy could just be ‘wrong’ but it’s…

How To Create a Data Product-Focused Data Strategy

Data engineering and storage costs are rising rapidly, with a 30% increase in 2022 (US and European cloud prices set to soar in 2023 – Techzine Europe). As US and European cloud prices were set to soar in 2023, data leaders searched for ways to maintain delivery speed while improving data governance and managing budgets….

Thinking of doing Data Mesh? – Start with Data Products

Data mesh has been the number one topic of conversation among the data crowd over the past few years. From the CDO Exchange to Big Data London, which even had a stage dedicated to the subject! The four principles of data mesh have been debated, dissected, and diagnosed at length via books, blogs, conferences, and…

A data strategy is not a ‘strategy for data’ 

Most data strategies fail to make it from reading material to change accelerant. This means that they don’t create tangible outcomes. Worse, they fail to address gaps in understanding and expectation. Simply, they don’t achieve relevance. When this happens, data and analytics remain an isolated technical domain focused on core activities’ ‘numerical exhaust.’  Why does…

How to create a Data Strategy: Part 3 – Plan

So far in this series on data strategy creation, we’ve discussed the importance of data strategy discovery activities to establish a current state assessment and how to define the data capabilities required for your ideal future state. In this article, we’re going deeper into what’s required to build the roadmap for your data strategy.  We’re…

Beware the tech sweetie jar!

If you like shiny new gadgets, an Energy and Utilities trade show is usually a sweet shop designed with you in mind. But just because it’s tempting doesn’t mean it’s good for you. I hear so many tales of woe when I go to these shows. Things like control engineers having to look across ten…

Digital transformation in utilities: An uphill battle?

This won’t surprise you, but digital transformation is really hard. It’s even harder when you’re working in a heavily regulated industry with legacy systems, messy data, and impatient stakeholders. We can all wax lyrical about how things should be (predictive maintenance, anyone?) but getting there is a tricky journey for a large energy or utility…

How to Create a Data Strategy: Part 2 – Define

Previously in our series on creating a data strategy, we discussed the importance of discovery and establishing a current state assessment. This week, we’re exploring the next step in the data strategy journey – how to define the ideal future state for navigating your data strategy and determining the data capabilities required to get you…

How to create a Data Strategy: Part 1 – Discovery

“How do we create a data strategy?” Many organisations face this question as they seek to modernise and drive greater value from their data. It’s a complex question to address because a data strategy needs to be custom-shaped to your organisation’s specific goals, culture, technology and value proposition. Your organisation is unique, so you can’t…