This article was written by Joe DosSantos and originally appeared on the Qlik Blog here: https://www.qlik.com/blog/make-your-business-data-fit-with-qlik-part-2
Data is like water to fuel a big workout: its hydration gives businesses and individuals what they need to hit their personal best. To help you turn data into insights that lead to better business decision making, we created a 30-60-90-day data integration fitness plan with expertise from leading Chief Data Officers (CDOs) – detailed below in this second post of a three-part blog series.
Part one explores the importance of data integration and busts a myth that might have stopped you from starting your data integration journey.
The First 30 days
Ask any gym goer and they will tell you that fitness is more fun with a friend. Engage senior stakeholders as your “spotters” with a shared vision and reframe the data integration project as a key goal to achieve business success. Take time to understand the business challenge that is driving the need for a data integration project, and what outcomes the project can deliver to address that challenge – much like figuring out why you’re working out. Also look inwards at the business and find out to what pain points the consumers of your data might have. Develop a user engagement plan to get them excited about your new data product. Don’t forget to communicate your project strategy and vision to users and other stakeholders consistently, so that your data integration project will see widespread adoption and future success.
60 Days In
Define your project scope and trim the fats that might be causing delays, additional costs, and unhappy stakeholders. Set realistic timelines for hitting achievable goals to ensure the project moves in the right direction and all stakeholders stay motivated for the journey ahead. Focus on simple wins first; by identifying and cleaning initial data points to start the testing and reconciliating process. You can add more data points later as your project becomes buffer.
90 Days and Beyond
Begin the development of your data product, integrating the data you previously identified and cleaned. Ensure that you stay flexible when writing your code, as this will enable you to add additional data points more easily further down the line. Once ready, show off the first gains of your data integration project to your stakeholders, highlighting how it is addressing business needs and delivering business value. This touchpoint also allows your stakeholders to share their feedback with you, which will impact future iterations of your data integration project as the business grows. Above all, don’t be shy in flexing the hard-earned results of your workout. Through measuring common ROI metrics such as adoption, efficiency, and performance, you can validate your fitness efforts and seek business support for future data integration projects.
Fitness Is a Journey
Never settle or get complacent. Data integration, like fitness, is a living concept. One CDO told us you can expect to change around 20% of your data integration products and workflows each year to meet new business requirements. Constant change requires constant support from the business, but why should the business grow your team or (re)invest into more data and analytics? Make an investment case for the next data integration project by demonstrating the team’s ROI.
One CDO we spoke to told us that his team pays itself off multiple times throughout the year through the value it delivers to the business, while another is confident that his team will achieve a ten times ROI just two years after launching the data integration project.
What 30-60-90-Day Data Fitness Can Do for You
A successful data integration project also shifts the mindset of the management and the board. They will become more open to adopting and investing in cloud services for future data projects. What’s more, the image of your CDO organization will change with every successful 30-60-90-day project. People across the company take note and your team becomes better-known for proactively driving business, customer, and shareholder value, and for improving innovation and customer experience with data and analytics. This positions you as the change driver you are meant to be.
How Qlik Can Help With Your Data Integration Project
The Qlik Data Integration Platform provides everything you need to solve even the most challenging enterprise-scale integration initiatives, including data warehouse automation, data lake creation, and Change Data Capture (CDC) streaming.
Qlik partners with many industry-leading technology companies to design complementary data product extensions, integrations, and connectors that extend the value of Qlik Data Analytics and Data Integration
Platforms and complement any company’s cloud transformation journey. Qlik’s partners include Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, Snowflake, and Databricks.
Now It’s Your Turn
Put your workout gear on and kick off your data integration project. Download our e-book for a more detailed 30-60-90-day plan to make your business data fit with Qlik today. Need more best practice? Check out the third blog post in this series for some exciting customer testimonials.