Building robust digital foundations

In today’s rapidly changing digital landscape, organisations are increasingly facing the need to implement strategies to manage and protect their data, especially when the data growth rate is not slowing down. IDC reported that companies will have 175 ZB of data by 2025, which combined with a highly competitive environment can be the recipe for a business disaster.

Building strong digital foundations that focus on data availability will be vital to the future of every organisation. They must implement effective intelligent data management strategies that help them being able to access the right data at the right time and recover it when it’s lost or damaged.

Building A More Intelligent Business

Veeam’s 2019 Cloud Data Management report, found that most organisations (73%) are unable to meet users’ demands for uninterrupted access to applications and data, but almost half of reported individuals (44%) see data management as critical to their businesses’ success in the next two years.

For data management strategies to be successful, enterprises need to follow four core components that not only encompass the technology but the people and the data-culture of the organisation.

Component 1: The rise of the cloud

Cloud Data Management, an intrinsic part of Intelligent Data Management, enables data availability across the business. Whether it is a hybrid, a cloud or a multi-cloud approach, leaders recognise the advantages, from reliability and flexibility to competitive costs and data security, the cloud allows them to manage and locate data where it will deliver the most value.

An organisation can aggregate large amounts of data but if it doesn’t have an efficient way to store it and make it accessible to business users, it will turn against them. Having data that is stored through a reliable and manageable process directly correlates to corporate stability and improves the ability to forecast and make better informed decisions.

 Component 2: Your capabilities matter

Business leaders reported that they will spend an average of $41 million on deploying technologies to help transform their operations within the next 12 months. However, for technologies such as backup, disaster recovery and data protection to have the expected business impact, organisations need to invest in their talent, giving them the tools and training to nurture their skills to successfully manage new programmes.

The digital journey’s outcome is intrinsically related to the level of technological capabilities of its userbase. Upskilling employee’s digital skills will be vital to the success of the company and should not be overlooked when allocating company resources. After all, it is the people who make a company successful.

 Component 3: Make it a data-driven culture

A corporate culture should be welcoming to innovation, support the introduction of new technologies and speed the process of digital transformation.

As companies move through this transformation, their culture needs to become more data-driven. Businesses already produce huge amounts of data, but it is not about just gathering data anymore, it has to be managed, analyzed and used to inform faster and make more effective decisions. And it is in the hands of the C-level to convey this way of thinking, from top to bottom leadership should demonstrate the business relation and how technology supports the organisation to uncover insights for better services and products.

 Component 4: Confidence is key

The level of confidence in an organisation’s capability to meet digital challenges naturally increases as the businesses progress on their digital transformation. However, the potential risks increase as well.

Addressing the first three components not only gives piece of mind internally but to customers and partners. Investing in robust, scalable and flexible solutions to address mission-critical issues, while allocating resources to improve internal skills will lay that much needed strong digital foundation.

Maximising the value of data, has never been as important as today, and as organisations take a leap onto their digital journey and work to become more intelligent businesses, they need to rely and trust their data will be available whenever is needed. Technology, people, new capabilities and a data-driven mentality will help take the steps towards enabling the next-generation of industry disruptors and innovators.