The Problem
This client is a utilities provider in South Australia and has physical assets all around the state. It’s a large organisation with lots of data spread across many capability areas. It’s a complex technology landscape where the data is stored across a multitude of on-prem and cloud-based systems.
The status quo reporting and analytics included many manual processes, which varied from area to area. There was a history of uncertainty about which data is an authoritative data asset that is the correct source of truth. Authoritative, accessible and available datasets are significant to business operations.
The Solution
Exposé has been working in partnership with the client on its data journey.
This started with a strategic vision and Roadmap for how the client could meet its data objectives. On the back of this, the first tranche of work was a thorough assessment of the current state, including consultation with all corners of the organisation. During this tranche, we also evaluated which technologies would best align with current and future data analytics priorities, while being supportable and simple to integrate into the current environment.
The second tranche of the Roadmap was to build a new data platform in Azure, using the knowledge gained from the wide-ranging discovery done in Tranche 1. The build phase was integration-heavy, with a clear focus on proving ingestion pipelines and culminated in an MVP Power BI report.
Good governance and establishing a baseline data governance framework were identified as a high priority. Tranche 2 also focussed on setting up the foundations for Data Governance in the new, modern data platform.
Business Benefit
Throughout the year-long partnership, exposé has been focused on unlocking real business value for the client. We have done this by tackling the core business problem through the lenses of People, Process and Technology.
Now, at the end of Tranche 2, the client has the following foundations on which it can continue its data journey:
People: a persona model to identify which data worker roles are required to support the new data platform.
Process: operational frameworks that set guardrails and define best-practice use across its modern data analytics ecosystem consisting of Microsoft Azure, Power BI and Purview, binding the pillars of People and Technology together.
Technology: a modern data platform using a Data Mesh architecture that can be used for new reporting, analytics and ML/AI solutions. Most importantly, these new solutions can now be done with better-defined controls and governance, clearly identifiable lineage, and a certification process for data assets. Technological accelerators, the exposé Data Automation Suite and Transformation Automation Suite have been embedded in the platform to reduce the time-to-value for all subsequent data ingestion and transformations within the platform.
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