In the past 18 months the data industry and data journey for businesses has changed significantly. As a moderator at GDS I have joined hundreds of hours of conversation around data and analytics and have heard first hand experiences from executives about their challenges around data. From being able to access the right data at the right time to ensuring clean data for use within the business. What has been most interesting to me, is the change the industry has gone through in such a short time. Data lakes, data ops, governance, internal culture around data, and now data mesh. So, when I went to ‘Big Data London’ in September, I was intrigued to hear how 150 vendors were tackling data challenges during disruptive times.
Data Mesh
From how to approach governance within a data mesh set up, to the basics on how to get started within your data mesh journey. Data mesh – while in some instances have been proven to be successful, it’s still a space to be explored. Is it right for your business? Is this the right time to be implementing a data mesh approach? Many success stories were shared, yet the key to every success story was the correct implementation. Ensuring the right teams are loaded with the right resources. Governance within data mesh is admittedly a bit of an unknown as it again requires tight implementation and successes of this are still being shown today. However, the most honest conversation around data mesh? The unknown. It’s clear this space still needs to be explored and will be part of our data conversation future.
Data Governance – How do you meet governance through your data demands?
Executives shared that governance remains to be a huge challenge for many organizations. Especially with the challenges around GDPR. What are some approaches to managing governance across your data? It was shared that one of the hard and fast ways to manage your data is through having clear communication within and across teams. Set structures and rules (or guidelines), in place to manage your data points and access.
As privacy continues to be a priority, there is more demand for tools and automation as ways of managing changes and regulations.
Budget – How big is your budget?
There are several vendors that can help offer solutions at every point of your data journey. From talent acquisition to project management, data lakes and data algorithm tools. But, if you looked at outsourcing your entire data journey it could be a challenge to get that level of commitment and financial resourcing. So, with economic instability, talent shortages, and an immense pressure on getting data strategies aligned with company targets finding the right tools and vendors are vital. But where do you start? One speaker was open in saying it took months of testing multiple vendors and really detailing out what they needed and how they could scale and adjust based on different functions that allowed the budget to remain intact.
The ‘Big Data London’ Experience
With seminar rooms based on core data challenges, it was difficult to choose what you wanted to hear about and who you wanted to listen to. Data driven culture, modern stack, fast data, modern analytics, data governance, data ops, and data mesh were just seven out of the 12 theatres available.
Covering so many key topics, it was interesting to hear the different angles and perspectives. For two days these rooms held around 10 sessions a day from 10.30-5pm. It was interesting to have a plethora of vendors available to share how they are helping their customers with the biggest data challenges to date.
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