Comment: You’ll never get anywhere with “we’ve always done things that way”: For a more-productive approach to data management (Author: Volker Gruhn)

In reality, though, that is no longer an accurate reflection of business requirements. Data management should have long since moved away from being the sole responsibility of IT departments. IT expertise should pervade every aspect of a business, and for good reason, too. The benefits of IT don’t end at departmental boundaries. The success of a business is increasingly dependent on IT, regardless of the industry. Be it new business models, product and service innovations or customer-centric campaigns: Whether projects and initiatives deliver the desired results hinges more often than not on the IT skills of those involved. This means that exploring new technologies and topics is a task for everyone.

Given how important data has become, it’s high time for a rethink. No business can afford to sit back and let their IT department take care of handling and understanding data. Data-mindedness is the key here. Everyone at a company must have data at the forefront of their minds, regardless of their area of responsibility. Once this premise is understood, there are two specific levels where action must be taken. First of all, each and every department – from sales to marketing and product development to HR – must establish their own department-specific IT and data expertise. Staff must be able to recognise, evaluate and implement data management strategies independently. Secondly, this process must spread across departmental boundaries. After all, it’s the success of the company as a whole that counts, not individual departments. The IT department is no different, either. In an ideal scenario, instead of being the service provider that swoops in and gets jobs done quickly, the department should advise, support and coordinate IT processes in other areas of the company. This is an area where DevOps can serve as a suitable organisation model. DevOps

originally came about as a way of bridging the void between software development and IT operations.

DevOps ensures that previously separate units form teams that work towards common goals, providing the perfect blueprint for dealing with the situation described above. Business departments join forces with technology experts to utilise data to its full potential. Although not as catchy as the term DevOps, BizTechData – the combination of business, technology and data – is a useful idea. By merging responsibilities and objectives, new teams are created that all pull in the same direction when it comes to data. This allows the awareness of what’s possible with data to trickle down through the whole company.

Business leaders should take a look at their company’s organisational structure from a data-usage perspective. Is the allocation of responsibilities up-to-date? What about the composition of individual teams? Or do these organisational elements date back to a time when IT was a department hidden behind a door? I believe that this is an important step towards better, more productive use of data. We are busy developing a corresponding concept with the working title “Road to data-driven Enterprise”, which is designed to help managers set their companies up for a future where data will become even more crucial to business success.