Why data? Why now? The business outcomes unlocked by data migration and innovation
IT professionals are experts at answering the questions what and how. They excel at bringing an engineering approach to evaluating options and executing complex projects.
But as technical executives take on more strategic leadership in their organizations, they are increasingly asking and answering the question why. This question requires more of a business approach, as it considers the outcomes that an organization is aiming for.
I’ve written previously about the role that data plays in achieving resilience, which is a key outcome that many businesses are prioritizing today. Here, I’d like to highlight several other compelling outcomes that may fall into your current mandate. The interesting thing about asking why is that you discover how interconnected these outcomes are. Many of the results listed here contribute directly to resilience. So, while your organization may be pursuing one outcome, it can also realize others as follow-on benefits.
Why migrate data to the cloud?
The move from on-premises servers to the cloud is about ensuring data availability.
Here’s what data migration can do for a business:
- Deliver modern infrastructure. On-premises data centers may not disappear anytime soon, but many are reaching the end of their lifecycle and need to be replaced. They may have limited capacity that doesn’t accommodate Big Data. Legacy server hardware and software are no longer the focus of development and optimization because cloud technology has much more potential.
- Enhance operational efficiency. Cloud environments offer centralized and simplified management, and they can be administered remotely around the clock. Better reliability and performance leads to fewer incidents, less time spent troubleshooting, and less lost productivity.
- Support security and regulatory compliance. Multilayered security and intelligent threat protection help defend your data from evolving threats. Data can be collected, stored, accessed, and deleted according to local data regulations. You benefit from the amalgamated security and regulatory expertise that is built into the cloud platform.
- Optimize costs. Cloud architecture lets you pay for only what you need at any given time by shutting down unused resources, consolidating or reconfiguring underused resources, and autoscaling to match performance needs.
Why innovate with cloud data analytics?
The switch to cloud data analytics is about maximizing data utility. Organizations can make more responsive, informed, and timely business decisions, thus getting more value from their data, when analytics are performed using cloud computing.
Here’s what cloud data analytics can help you achieve:
- Innovate the customer experience. Whether the data pertains to e-commerce or other web applications, supply chains, or any other touchpoint on the customer journey, analytics puts your finger on the pulse of that experience so you can optimize it.
- Improve product quality and innovation. Data delivers insights into product performance that would otherwise be completely opaque. Those unique insights open the door for new and improved goods and services that stimulate an organization’s growth.
- Promote agility. You can move from batch processing and hours-long transformation and cleaning to real-time queries. Insights can be used in the moment of a customer interaction, not days or weeks later. Trends and patterns surface sooner so the organization can take action.
Why accelerate these initiatives?
If we ask why often enough, we get to the highest-level answer possible: data migration and innovation enable your organization’s success, however you define that.
So, you increase your chances of success—and you can achieve greater success—if you move faster to migrate your data and leverage analytics. These technologies and migration processes have matured to the point where your organization can attain significant improvements much quicker than you might expect.
To learn more about innovating with cloud data analytics using Microsoft Azure Synapse, check out the e-book Analytics Lessons Learned. You’ll get real-world examples of how four forward-thinking companies drove business agility with analytics.
