A Year of Platform Modernization: Don’t Forget About Your Data!
For this month’s installment of our Year of Platform Modernization blog series, we are exploring the importance of keeping data at the forefront of your mind during the modernization process.
Not caught up on the series? Check out the first post, Kicking off A Year of Platform Modernization to see what you’ve missed.
With all the formalities out of the way, let’s dive right in.
It’s no secret that data is a driving force in today’s market. Not to be punny, but look at the numbers.
Take McKinsey & Company’s latest survey on trends in customer analytics, for example. Compared to companies with no extensive use of customer analytics, they found that those extensively using analytics yield:
- 126% higher profits
- 132% higher return on investment
- 131% higher sales
Needless to say, working effective data strategies into your platform is a no-brainer.
By maximizing the value of data captured, companies gain insightful analytics. These insights help predict, inform, and influence business decisions.
So what does this all boil down to? How should data influence my modernization strategy?
As you begin to design and build your new platform, consider how you store, process, and leverage your data. Think about the implications and opportunities of these decisions.
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of how, we want to sweeten the deal and explain the benefits of thinking data-first for platform modernization.
Reduce Overall Costs by Rooting Out Redundancies
Chances are there are redundancies in your current data storage processes. Simplify these processes to prevent duplication and save money on unnecessary data storage.
Ensure the Quality of Your Data is High
Rethinking your data layer creates an opportunity to assess the quality of current data. From there, you can think through processes to capture the highest quality information available.
Improve Operational Performance of Applications and Reports
By building separate operational and analytical processing, or aligning your data to microservices, you can improve operational efficiency. Segmenting in this way allows you to choose the right hardware, infrastructure, and cloud service to support the needs of your specific data.
Optimize Your Data Storage Strategy
Whether your concern is budget, efficiency, storage timelines, etc., cloud providers offer different solutions to meet a variety of needs. Think about which provider’s solution is the best buy to store your data. Want more on how to choose the right cloud provider? Tune in next month!
How to Implement a Data-First Mindset
Hopefully, we have shown you the value of thinking about data when modernizing your platform. So what steps should you consider to make this a reality?
- Locate or Create a Data Inventory – Build a centralized view of all data repositories, the types of data stored, as well as all associated inputs and outputs.
- Assess the Current and Potential Business Needs for the Data – What data do you depend on today? What data may have value in the future? Are there new opportunities to capture data about your customer and further guide your business?
- Decide Your Data Storage Strategy (Database, Data Lake, Data Warehouse, Archival Storage, etc.) – Optimize resources for the best performance and lowest cost (for both synchronous and asynchronous transactions)
- Design New Data Stores and Your ETL (extract, transform, load) Process – Consider buy vs. build options along the way
- Integrate Your New Data Strategy into Your Modernization Roadmap
Maximize the ROI of the modernization process by prioritizing data in your approach. By doing so, your organization can glean insights from your application’s vast pool of data. This means future business decisions can be made thoughtfully and backed by the numbers.
Ready to begin the modernization process? Head over to our platform modernization page to find out how our experts at KMS can guide you through the process.
