Defining a data strategy

An essential component of your

transformation journey
 All organizations engage with, operate on and leverage
Table of contents data every day across a variety of business functions. Those
The data strategy vision 2 organizations that take a holistic approach to adopting an
Data strategy defined 3 enterprise-grade data strategy are able to optimize their
technology investments and lower their costs.
Four common drivers 3

Eight components of a Organizations that want a smooth transition to becoming

winning data strategy 4 data driven need a plan for advancing their business
transformation journey and treating data as a corporate asset.
Implementing, maintaining
and evolving 6
Creating a data strategy is the first step toward defining and
enabling such a plan.
A holistic approach 8

The data strategy vision

All organizations make decisions about how they engage with, operate on and
leverage their data — whether at an enterprise or project level. Companies that
form a holistic point of view in adopting an enterprise-grade data strategy are well
positioned to optimize their technology investments and lower their costs. Such a
strategy treats data as an asset from which valuable insights can be derived. These
insights can be used to gain a competitive advantage by being integrated into
business operations.

Organizations that want a smooth transition to becoming data driven — aligning

operational decisions to the systematic (and automatic, as much as possible)
interpretation of data — need a plan for advancing their transformation journey
and treating data as a corporate asset. Creating a data strategy is the first step
toward enabling such a plan and increasing the organization’s analytics maturity.
This term refers to an organization’s ability to deploy advanced analytics at every
point of interaction — human as well as machine — to continuously improve
decision-making quality and accuracy.

A data strategy ensures that all data initiatives follow a common method and
structure that is repeatable. This uniformity enables efficient communication
throughout the enterprise for rationalizing and defining all solution designs that
leverage data in some manner.

Many organizations fail to prioritize defining a data strategy on the grounds that it’s
either a case of “boiling the ocean” or else an “infinity project” that will deliver little
value. In both cases, they’re incorrect. Creating a data strategy is both achievable and
valuable. It’s also an essential component of any organization’s transformation journey.

Companies that embrace the constructs of a data strategy often define dedicated roles
to own these strategies and policies. This ranges from augmenting executive staff and
IT staff with roles such as chief data officer and chief data strategist, respectively, to
expanding the responsibilities of traditional enterprise data architects.

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All aspects of a data strategy Data strategy defined
should be agile and deliver A data strategy is a common reference of methods, services, architectures,
usage patterns and procedures for acquiring, integrating, storing, securing,
frequent, iterative value to
managing, monitoring, analyzing, consuming and operationalizing data. It is, in
the business. Such agili-
effect, a checklist for developing a roadmap toward the transformation journey
ty enables the strategy to that companies are actively pursuing as part of their modernization efforts. This
evolve over time, changing includes clarifying the target vision and practical guidance for achieving that vision,
as the organization changes with clearly articulated success criteria and key performance indicators that can be
and allowing for input and used to evaluate and rationalize all subsequent data initiatives.
recommendations from all A data strategy does not contain a detailed solution to use cases and specific
levels of the organization. technical problems. Nor is it limited to high-level constructs intended only for senior
leadership. Sustaining a successful data strategy requires executive sponsorship
and governance for alignment with corporate objectives and enforced adherence.
As corporate objectives evolve, so should the data strategy — keeping up not only
with how the business is operating but also with how supporting technologies and
related innovations are maturing.

Four common drivers

Though the impetus for creating a data strategy can vary from one organization to
the next, there are four common drivers:

• Unification of business and IT perspectives. A common data strategy ensures that

the business and IT organizations are positioned as joint leaders of the company’s
direction by understanding each other’s needs, capabilities and priorities. In this way
companies can adopt a “business-led/technology-enabled” approach for not only
internal operations but also vendor and partner collaborations.

• Enterprise-wide alignment of vision and guidance on leveraging data as an

asset. Such alignment, captured in a data strategy, ensures that different groups
in the enterprise view data-related capabilities with consistency, which reduces
redundancy and confusion. Repeatability, a key outcome of consistency, reduces
operational cost and optimizes performance due to higher quality and reusability.

• Definition of key metrics and success criteria across the enterprise. The data
strategy defines “success” and “quality,” thus reinforcing consistency for how initiatives
are measured, evaluated and tracked across all levels of interacting organizations.

• Reduction of technology debt. Current-state legacy implementations have

often become “technology debt” — the existing investment in legacy technology
that may be providing limited business value in relation to cost, performance or
quality needs, or is hindering the adoption of innovative technology or business
practices. These barriers to innovation are both costly and complex to alter. A
data strategy takes the current state of the enterprise data environments and
operations into account and provides guidance for applying innovation with
minimal disruption to ongoing business operations.

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 DXC Industries

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initiatives at scale, which can yield a utility-like service that provides a “supply chain
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end-user-focused service, with the entire supply chain that produces and delivers
the insights abstracted from the consumer. It is similar to the way electricity
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DXC Industries workflow for the transformation Consumer Energy Financial Services Healthcare
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of data to actionable insights; this workflow encompasses ingestion, analytics,

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Eight components of a winning data strategy

To ensure that a data strategy incorporates the full scope necessary to provide
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enterprise-wide guidance, organizations should include the following foundational
components:

1. Semantics. A company-specific glossary of definitions for all terms and topics

related to data, its handling and use.

2. Goals/vision and rationalization. A common explanation of the data

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strategy’s importance and goals. Unique IT and business perspectives should be
represented here, along with a clear correlation with the organization’s strategic
business goals. One of the most important elements to define is the data
maturity model used to evaluate the current state. This model also will be used to
structure the data strategy roadmap, a main tool in practical implementation of
the strategy.

3. Strategic principles. Common standards and methodologies that an

organization adheres to across all of its data efforts. These are typically business-
focused principles but have a direct impact on the enabling technical design
principles and functionality. Technical design principles are included in the
reference architecture portion of the data strategy.

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 4. Current-state documentation. The business operations and technical
implementations that capture how the organization’s data operations function
today. This content is used as the baseline for evaluating enterprise capabilities,
their health and maturity in the context of the data strategy vision.

Organizations should 5. Governance model.

include eight components • Compliance and standards. Data standards, procedures and compliance
in their data strategy: criteria that the organization must adhere to for regulatory reasons, and those
they voluntarily wish to adopt.
1. Semantics
• Change management. Methods and standards by which change across the
2. Goals/vision and rationalization
data strategy scope is introduced, evaluated, confirmed and conformed into
3. Strategic principles the iterative evolution and communication of the data strategy iterations.
4. Current-state documentation This includes crowdsourcing contribution of edits, ideas and related
communications from all levels of the organization. Change management also
5. Governance model
defines how deviations and exceptions to the strategy standards are identified,
6. Data management guidance documented and handled.
7. Reference architecture
• Workflow guidance. Procedures and methods for defining and managing
8. Sample and starter solution library the data and solution life cycles, including operational and support-control
handoffs.

• Organizational structures. Guidance on how human resources and interactions

should be defined, maintained and scaled within the scope of data-related
activities. This also includes proper skill set definitions for all such resources.

6. Data management guidance. Standards and processes for managing data

elements, their attributes and groupings, including:

• Data topics. Groupings of functionally related data that operate above the data
model level of table/columns or file content. (Note: Data governance policies
are often applied at the data topic level rather than to the raw data.)

• Metadata. Supplementary information about the data being managed and

operated upon. This metadata is typically managed separately from the data
it describes, even if some of the metadata may be sourced from the same
systems in the same feeds as raw data.

• Data stewardship/curation/security/audits. Processes that ensure data

is properly catalogued, of high quality and correctly secured for proper
authorization by approved users.

7. Reference architecture. A good reference architecture takes into account existing

or legacy standards and implementations, and allows for new standards and
innovations to be integrated into a hybrid model that continues to support the
organization as it evolves and grows. The key aspects of a data architecture include:

• Architectural design principles. Foundational technical goals and guidance

for all data solutions. These principles help to ensure consistency across the
domains that the data strategy influences.

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 • Domain and function model. The listing and definitions for core groupings
of technical capabilities and their detailed definitions, including associated
interactions supporting full data life cycle and use/exploitation, from discovery
and experimentation to production-hardened operation.

• Data usage patterns (with alignment to domain/functional mapping).

Groupings of solutions that share common functional and technical
requirements, such as data discovery, data science or operational decision
support.

• Design patterns. High-level solution templates for common repeatable

architecture modules, such as ingestion for batch vs. stream, data storage in
data lakes vs. relational databases, data harmonization for multiple sources
and data access by different user profiles.

• Tool mapping/function matrix. A catalog listing of tools aligned across the

functional capabilities model with preferences and primary-fit evaluations.

• Tool rationalizations. Documented guidance and points of view about

when certain tools should be used, with supporting justifications. Such
rationalizations include viewpoints and explanations of how different tools
should be used in conjunction with other tools and with different design
patterns.

8. Sample and starter solution library. A collection of predesigned

solutions based on proactive assumptions and the harvesting of existing
implementations. These are often leveraged as illustrative examples and
accelerators for future solutions.

• Logical solution models. High-level solution patterns that can be applied in

leveraging multiple tools and environments.

• Physical designs. Designs optimized for specific tool combinations and

interactions that can be reused as standard accelerators.

• Prebuilt code and intellectual property (IP). Collateral that can be used for
automation or accelerators.

• Partner solution catalog. A listing of prebuilt services, APIs and packages that
are sourced from external vendors and partnerships.

Implementing, maintaining and evolving

A data strategy has to account for how an organization plans to mature its data-
centric capabilities and enable new data- and analytics-based products and
services to mature. A data strategy roadmap is a tactical short-term and long-term
plan of initiatives to achieve this, captured by the data strategy in the target state
vision. This plan is used to articulate the phases and iterations for each of the key
data strategy components above. All data-related initiatives should align to the
overall data strategy roadmap and, in turn, align to the overall data strategy an
organization adopts and evolves.

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 It is important to ensure that the first iterations of implementing the data strategy
are achievable and deliver measurable value, before pursuing higher maturity goals.
Often, it is enough to start defining and implementing the data strategy across its
components, without driving any of them to their ultimate state of maturity. To gain the
greatest benefit, however, organizations should develop the following components to a
well-defined state as a prerequisite to most tactical implementations:
It is important to ensure that
• Goals and vision must be identified and documented up front. One of the
the first iterations of imple- simpler efforts, it is often neglected despite bringing the broadest consistency
menting the data strategy and credibility. Many organizations misspend millions of dollars and countless
are achievable and deliver work hours developing solutions that are misaligned with their own core
measurable value, before principles and goals.
pursuing higher maturity • Strategic principles are high-level constraints to be captured before making any
goals. design decisions and implementations. These principles drive and validate every
decision made with regard to the data strategy.

• The reference architecture should be well framed and communicated ahead

of any technical decisions related to data. The reference architecture drives the
technical point of view for tool selection and solution designs. It encourages the
adoption of templates and structures for capturing and defining patterns and
rationalizations so that they can evolve and be reused by a broader community
of architects.

The ability to operate across hybrid legacy and new technologies — which in turn
can be deployed across on-premises, cloud and geographic instances — is heavily
dependent on proper reference architecture definitions from the start, with
vigilance toward continued innovation and evolution.

• Governance is not only important to deploy as early in the transformation

journey as possible but is often compulsory. Companies need the ability to
monitor, audit and control their data and its use to ensure proper liability
management and communication management throughout the entire solution
life cycle. The detailed content may evolve over time, but the structures, trigger
controls and ownership responsibilities need to be defined and set up as early as
possible. This will ensure that proper roles and checklists are in place as the data
strategy and data solutions evolve and mature from one iteration to the next,
with minimal disruption to business operations.

Many other aspects of the data strategy are certainly important, and they can be
iterated as need and maturity dictate. But they typically follow a more organic
process, one that requires less upfront effort. Instead, these aspects typically
involve a harvesting effort in which previous iterations are turned into repeatable
and reusable guidance and collateral.

Harvesting is a common approach. The key prerequisite for successful harvesting

is to establish document templates that can catalog approaches for capturing what
has been learned and collateral information. In this way, a data strategy becomes a
“living document” and evolves through continuous improvement, with well-defined
change-management governance.

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 As with any business or technical process, a data strategy has its own life cycle of
continual evolution, maturity, change and scale. Aspects of the data strategy —
including its principles, tools and technology definition — will need to be revisited
periodically and kept aligned with market trends, new technologies and changing
business priorities. The key is to recognize, interpret and react to such change
quickly and efficiently when it happens.
Next steps:
• Learn more about DXC Analytics and
Defining an operating model and a cadence of checkpoints for the business and IT
contact us about a data strategy and to stay informed and engaged is a powerful governance approach to making a data
architecture advisory effort, including strategy effective. Every major transformation — for example, modernizing a data
review of your current efforts. warehouse — will need both a roadmap plan and an operating model before it can
• Engage in an internal data strategy get started.
initiative to formulate a holistic strategy
An architecture review board is often created by the data governance organization
point of view and harvest available
collateral. to monitor whether all projects are properly adhering to the standards and tool
guidance, and to oversee proposed changes to such guidance.

A holistic approach
Managing the dynamic, ever-growing landscape of data technology and fluctuating
business operations requires clear and consistent communication and guidance.
To drive continuous improvement in your data strategy as you evolve it for each
technology and business initiative, we recommend taking these steps:

• Learn more about DXC Analytics and contact us about a data strategy and
architecture advisory effort, including review of your current efforts.

• Engage in an internal data strategy initiative to formulate a holistic strategy point

of view and harvest available collateral.

Organizations that adopt a holistic data strategy are able to manage the challenges
of adopting and adapting innovation efficiently into existing operations. Without a
holistic data strategy, organizations risk internal miscommunication and inefficient
use of data technology, delayed time to market and poor-quality solutions.
Accelerate your business transformation and define your data strategy now.

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 Learn more at
dxc.com/analytics

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