Being a data driven company today is no longer an option. In fact, organizations that renounce data management as a lever for business are destined to progressively lose competitiveness.

According to the latest edition of the Big Data Analytics & Business Intelligence Observatory of the School Management of the Polytechnic of Milan, although the Big Data Analytics market in Italy in 2018 reached a figure of 1.4 billion euros, only 14% of the large Italian companies has embarked on a path of construction of a data driven approach. Still further behind are SMEs, 7% of which have started Big Data Analytics projects, while 10% continue to have little or no understanding of the benefits of mature use of Big Data. It is now clear that knowledge based on objective and updated information, guided by data, represents an opportunity to make more informed business decisions. Therefore, if we were to summarize the formula for a data driven company, the fundamental ingredients to consider would be strategy, technology and partnership.

The data driven approach as a strategy

It should be noted that for a company to become data driven, the first step to take is not to immediately choose the technological tools capable of collecting, organizing and analyzing data.

First, a change management itinerary that involves C-levels on a data culture as the engine of business is needed. This implies a revision of the hierarchies and levels with which data is usually divided. If in the past the attention was concentrated almost exclusively on those of an economic-financial nature, so much so that the Business Intelligence platforms mainly examined the Finance area, a data driven strategy provides that all data must be transformed into value. One of the areas in which, for example, the data driven method is finding a happy application is that of marketing. Being able to constantly have an in-depth picture of the behavior of its customers and the orientations of prospects and leads is the main way to make targeted decisions and plan consequent activities.

Technologies for a data driven company

Having clarified the first point on data culture as the cornerstone of a data driven strategy, the second ingredient of the formula consists in identifying the suitable technologies to convert the strategy into action. The Polytechnic Observatory reveals that 45% of the expense in Analytics is concentrated in applications for specific business processes and in databases that are used to acquire, process, display and analyze data. Immediately thereafter, 34% of the investments are dedicated to services, including software customization, integration with company information systems and process redesign consultancy. Finally, 21% of the expenditure relates to infrastructure resources, i.e. computing capacity, servers and storage to be used in the creation of Analytics services. These are tools that govern some of the phases of a data driven plan which, to be complete, needs platforms such as DMP (Data Management Platform). The DMPs, in fact, are modular frameworks often released as a cloud service, which include Big Data Analytics systems integrated with artificial intelligence engines, essential for extracting insights from huge quantities of data.

The importance of the partner in a data driven project

The choice of the most suitable DMP for company needs must be made together with the identification of a partner who ensures not only the development and implementation of the platform from a technological point of view, but also accompanies the company along the necessary change management path.

The consultancy aspect, therefore, can only be an integral part of the company profile in charge of bringing culture and data driven technologies within the company. Therefore, when selecting, it is necessary to consider certain requirements that the partner must possess, including:

a proven competence in the data driven solutions offered together with organizational skills;
examples of success obtainable from its customers;
consolidated links with leading market vendors with respect to which it acts as a certified system integrator.

For all these reasons, partnership is the third essential ingredient for the success of a data driven project.

How Relatech can help

Relatech can help customer companies throughout the design cycle of a data driven solution, starting from business analysis and technological assessment, to the design, implementation and delivery of the finished solution.

Based on its digital platform RePlatform, Relatech has in fact built an offer divided into Innovative Services and Digital Solutions.

Innovative Services concern the analysis of business processes and technical needs to propose the best solutions. These services, provided by Relatech Consulting, a company of the group specialized for years in consultancy services, include on the one hand the analysis of current Business processes (as-is) and the needs for organizational change (to be) necessary to obtain the advantages of digitalization. On the other, the Technical and Functional analysis, the definition of innovative technological proposals, as well as support for project management, training and technological update services and post-production application support.

Digital Solutions, on the other hand, concern the development and delivery of Cloud solutions based on the functional and technical analysis produced of the Innovative services. All Digital Solutions are based on RePlatform and customized to meet the specific needs of each customer. RePlatform is in fact the Cloud based framework developed by Relatech, declinable in various business areas that allows you to develop customized solutions based on specific customer needs.

Regarding of Data Management, RePlatform fully responds to the needs expressed previously thanks to one of its modules: ReData.

ReData, COGNITIVE ANALYTICS: it manages large quantities of data and allows it to be analyzed quickly and deeply through AI algorithms, chosen appropriately case by case, to make correct and timely decisions. Using Big Data and Machine Learning technologies, ReData extrapolates relevant information insight from data, identifies recurrent and anomalous patterns, and produces predictive analyzes useful for the business.

ReData, if necessary together with the other modules of RePlatform, ReYou, DIGITAL CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE, ReThing, PHYSICAL / DIGITAL INTERACTION, ReSec, PROTECTION OF VALUE, ReHub, CLOUD READINESS, allows you to create vertical Data Management solutions for different market sectors that they range from Retail to Utilities, to Telecommunications and Industry to finish with Finance.

Thanks to this technology and its skills, Relatech offers solutions to make each company a Data-Driven Company, allowing to exploit the enormous potential that each company has in terms of available data, and make it available to the business.