At InterSystems, a big part of my role is getting to speak to people across all industries and really understand what problems they are looking to solve – whether that’s a 360-degree view of data, or how they can better utilize their existing technology investments.
A more recent example of this comes from an Economist webinar I spoke on where I was in excellent company with a panel of leading experts from BlackRock, Novant Health, and MassMutual to talk about harnessing disparate data for better business performance and how it can address problems just like those mentioned above.
Harnessing data is something we’re truly passionate about at InterSystems, as being able to fully leverage data can help businesses unleash their true potential – enabling them to innovate, stay competitive, and move their organization forward.
However, in today’s data economy, data silos have become widespread and for many organizations finding ways to bring the data together to use it more effectively is proving challenging.
Yet, while the majority of businesses can relate to the struggle of having data silos, they are avoidable and fixable. With this in mind, the other panelists and I set about exploring not only the causes of data silos, but also how to solve this issue, the value of bringing data together, and new approaches to data and analytics to drive better decision-making and business outcomes.
Economist webinar highlights
The discussion covered a range of interesting points such as:
- Being able to understand what’s happening at an enterprise level in aggregate and in real-time is vital to enable organizations to answer ad hoc questions from regulatory bodies and to comply with regulations, however, data silos and potentially inaccurate data are making this extremely challenging
- The organizations that have been most successful at bridging data silos are those that are technologically advanced, looking at new approaches, and have an organizational structure that promotes inter-departmental collaboration
- Businesses can better set themselves up for success by establishing clear business goals and metrics to work towards
- Some of the best things a business can do to prepare themselves for their data bridging journey is to identify the business drivers that will move the needle for the organization and get all the different parts of organization on board so that they have a cross-organizational team working towards a common goal. All of this should be supported by strong technology
- When looking to solve a technical problem, swap a proof of concept for a proof of value – this will make it much easier to justify the spend on technology, effort, and headcount
Most importantly however, it proves that it is possible to connect disparate data to enable faster, better decision-making. Whether you choose to do that through centralized or distributed data governance, enterprises can access information in ways that are more precise, deliver greater value, facilitate seamless customer journeys, and mitigate risks in a rapidly changing business landscape.
Featuring experts from a range of sectors, the webinar highlighted a variety of examples and data use cases, showing just how important being able to leverage data is for everything from healthcare to financial services. It also underlined just how critical cross-functional collaboration is to bridge silos and increase innovation for businesses across all industries.
If you’d like to find out more about how to bring together the data within your organization and the benefits you can unlock by doing so, listen to the webinar
here.