“When you’ve got a mass of data, how do you analyze that data and get to a point where you can get the gemstones, the diamonds out of it?” Mike Young, Chief Information Officer with Centrica, knows what it’s like to wade through a sea of petabytes and terabytes to find value. Centrica is an energy utility and services company, providing gas, oil, and renewables to businesses and consumer markets…

The term “prescriptive analytics” denotes the use of many different disciplines such as AI, mathematics, analytics, or simulations to advise the user whether to act, and what course of action to take. In that sense, prescriptive analytics offers an advisory function regarding the future, rather than simply “predicting” what is about to happen. This newer branch of business analytics informs and guides decision logic through the skillful use of analytics.…

Walk around any large organization and hear people groan about finding the right data to do their work. In the typical organization, data sits in multiple places, lost behind technical and functional boundaries. These isolated systems, referred to as “data silos,” have often existed for good purposes and reasons such as helping each business function do their job well and meet legal requirements. However, without a cohesive and unified data…

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning techniques are altering the way organizations gather, process, and protect data. They are being used to gather massive amounts of information about internet users in the form of Big Data, and to secure and protect it. The challenge is how to maximize the use of Big Data, while simultaneously safeguarding the information and protecting the privacy of individuals. Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which…

Blockchain technology, a distributed and secure database system, has been making significant advances since it first started gaining popularity a few years ago. It started out in the cryptocurrency world, but is also finding considerable usage in banking and finance, as well as asset settlement. But, can blockchain also be used for other use cases as well, such as data storage? This may seem counter-intuitive due to a long-held assumption:…

If organizations must have Data Stewardship, but struggle with deploying valuable Data Stewardship programs, how can companies mitigate the challenges and get better results faster? The Art of War, by the Chinese military general Sun Tzu, provides insight. He advised, “strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” How does this apply to Data Stewardship? Data Stewardship requires integrating both strategy…