How to design a data architecture for business success
PA Consulting’s Tim Garrood, data architecture expert, comments on how organisations can gain business value from data, in an article by Stephen Pritchard on designing a data architecture for business success.
Commenting on this, Tim says: “Data architecture is many things to many people, and it is easy to drown in an ocean of ideas, processes and initiatives. Firms need to ensure that data architecture projects deliver value to the business, he adds, and this needs knowledge and skills, as well as technology.”
Tim explains: “I like to ask the question, ‘what are we able to do with better data, what is it that could be different? If it doesn’t come with an articulated business problem, then that’s the next place to go. Physical data architecture, data flows and integration of data sources and applications come after that.”
He continues: “Part of the role of the data architect is to paint that picture of what the benefits can look like, but it’s also to identify what needs to be changed, and what new flows need to be added to the pipeline.”
Tim concludes: “Fundamentally, it is there to model the world we see, and to represent that world in some way, It’s still fundamentally about modelling entities and the relationships between them. It comes down to the same basics about being clear about what you’re trying to achieve.”
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