Blog

Why Invest in Data Quality?

This can seem like a rhetorical question: you should always invest in Data Quality! But we are still not investing enough: surveys show Data Quality issues are increasing in most organisations and on average, take up 34% of a Data Engineers time instead of them creating value by adding new features. This increases to 50% in large…

Data Governance Maturity Assessment: The Secret Ingredient to Creating Great Insights

I was gifted a visit to a Michelin restaurant once. It looked and felt like a nice country pub in every way, but when I tasted the leek and potato soup… wow. And I mean, WOW! I know, how good could leek and potato soup be, you ask? Well, let me tell you, my wife…

How to create a secure Azure Data Platform

There are many methods you can use to secure your data platform and the data contained within it within Azure. The security controls that will be most effective for each data platform differ based on the usage of the platform, the data sources for the platform and many other factors; Having a holistic view of…

The Building Safety Act 2022 – How do you manage your data?

With new duties introduced from 12th April 2023, the construction industry should be mobilising itself to fulfill its obligations starting with planning gateway one with the next milestones just around the corner. The Building Safety Act is a comprehensive change in the regulation with significant impacts on Data and how it should be managed. The…

People, The missing element in Data Governance

An F1 team could have the fastest, most reliable car out of all the other teams in the line-up – the technology being used is cutting edge, something other teams are yet to adopt or invest in. Unfortunately, despite having this technological advantage, the F1 team boss has failed to look at his driver (People)…

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…

Demystifying Data Ownership

Most organisations rely on their data as a strategic asset to thrive and operate efficiently in the most competitive business landscape. Maintaining a smoothly running operation backed with data requires careful consideration of data ownership, a crucial but often neglected aspect.   While data ownership might appear to be a simple concept, implementing it can pose…

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…

Accepting Anxiety

Everyone suffers with anxiety to some degree at times. Yes – everyone! Even those people who seem uber confident and appear to have the world at their feet. We have become masters of disguise and in reality we all have our doubts and worries and those pesky little thoughts which play on our minds and…

What are the costs of poor quality data?

Poor data quality costs businesses, charities, and governments trillions of pounds each year. Most organisations talk of digital transformation, and as business becomes ever increasingly digitised and complex, this cost is likely to increase. Managing data quality issues is seen as one of the most significant challenges for leaders. Gartner research highlighted 60% of respondents…

How to create a data product focused data strategy 

Data Engineering and storage costs are spiraling (increasing by 30% in the past year!) (US and European cloud prices set to soar in 2023 – Techzine Europe), so data leaders are naturally looking at ways to maintain the velocity of delivery, whilst also bucking up their data governance efforts and keeping an eye on ever-increasing…

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…