How can CIOs create a Data Driven Organization?

The organization of the next era will be a digital, data driven animal.

To function efficiently, effectively, economically and profitably an ever-increasing emphasis will be placed on the real-time availability of processed information. The information will be accessed by a plethora of analytics and delivered via an intelligent infrastructure. This infrastructure will deploy artificial intelligence, machine learning and multiple applications and tools from many sources, delivering valuable insights to these data driven organizations.

Instant access to focused, clearly presented, graphic information will empower an organization to make better decisions. It will enable them to deploy valuable resources and working capital more precisely, plan more intelligently and predict events, trends and patterns more accurately for the future.

A typical enterprise will need to take feeds from tens, hundreds or thousands of data sources and analytical applications. These will be from a broad range of ecosystem partners and vendors, large and small.

To optimize the effectiveness of its technological investment, the organization must invest time and money. It must use these resources to research what is available across an increasingly broad supply chain. It must take advantage of skills and specialization from many culturally and linguistically diverse corners of the globe.

It will not be possible for one supplier partner to provide solutions to every requirement. The technology platform of the future will utilize a range of different deployment models to meet its needs. On premise, cloud and hybrid delivery models will all proliferate and will need to be managed.

It will not be practical to impose limits or tight centralized controls which restrict and inhibit the end user’s choice of data sources and feeds.

Immediate data access on every aspect of the organization’s operations will be mandatory. The CIO of the coming decade will need to recognize and understand this evolving landscape. The CIOs of the 2020s will need to construct a technological environment which captures and derives maximum benefit from a blend of complex relationships between large and small eco system partners. These ecosystems will deliver both generic, enterprise-wide platforms, like ERP and niche, focused applications at a remote or specific location.

Welcome back to the dawn of ‘distributed computing’, as we used to call it!

Users rebelling against constrictive central ‘IT’ policies, and suppliers engaging in a feeding frenzy of localized or departmental implementation of inadequately specified hardware and software. Typically, about 80% of the system’s potential capabilities being underutilized. Chaos and anarchy on a grand scale, as I recall!

But perhaps we have moved on?

Perhaps we are all wiser and more educated in the effective deployment of more closely specified infrastructure? Perhaps now this infrastructure is acquired via focused and knowledge-based procurement processes rather than through the persuasiveness of the bigger vendors?

Perhaps…

So have we now achieved a new paradigm for the delivery of data to our users? A paradigm that will take us through to the next decade?

Let’s take a closer look at this proposition.

The CIOs of the 2020s face a challenge. There will be a flood of apps into all organizations in the coming years. These will have to be enabled and deployed effectively. They will need to be interfaced with legacy systems and other business-critical applications. Crucially, they will need to address key issues including cyber security and regulatory requirements.

What is the best way for the CIO of the near future to successfully accomplish this?

He or she will need to build an operational model which accepts diversity within an internal ‘regulated’ environment, which will provide guidelines rather than rules. This environment will offer structures which embrace the introduction of apps and tools from multiple sources and suppliers. These will increasingly be accessible, ‘open’ and able to be implemented quickly and efficiently. The environment will allow valuable resources to be focused on running the enterprise, rather than on integrating and interfacing incompatible systems.

To enable an open and accessible environment to be implemented, certain elements will need to be embraced. These are the provision and support of storage, back-up and networks, which will be increasingly driven by mobile apps and autonomous user devices.

On the face of it, this seems an enormously challenging and endless mission. So, is it possible to create a viable scenario for the future?

Here at Greenbird, we believe it is possible and essential to build a ‘universal’ platform which will enable the transition to a world of real time apps and data feeds, deployed effectively and economically to empower the organization’s human capital. This universal platform will enable information to be accessed by analytics and deliver valuable insights to organizations.

In turn, these insights will enable innovation.

We believe that at the heart of this access, interoperability and enablement, there needs to lie an engine which facilitates the rapid and flexible deployment of apps with minimal integration and interfacing issues. Multiple ‘Proofs of Concept’ and ‘Pilot’ projects based on Greenbird technology allow the CIO and team to identify which apps are most appropriate and help quantify the potential benefits from their implementation before making major commitments or investments in money and scarce resources.

This unique environment is provided by Greenbird’s Platform as a Service and lies at the heart of a growing number of enterprises where ‘Smart’ technology is being deployed to great effect in complex infrastructures, including energy utilities. Greenbird is enabling these enterprises to accelerate the transition to the 2020 paradigm. Greenbird’s Platform as a Service enables integration from a variety of data sources which can be accessed by a plethora of analytics. The processed information can then be delivered in clearly presented graphics. The insights gathered pave the way for these companies to be truly Data Driven Organizations, which are free to grow and prosper through the next era of data-centric organizations.

For more information on Greenbird’s Platform as a Service, please visit the site or contact info@greenbird.com