The Reality of Data Confidence

Achieving Data Confidence
If your CFO asked for a report showing the net profit for the company for the last 6 weeks from three people, would they all come up with the same answer? Even with the implementation of a Data Warehouse, Master Data Repository, ODS, or Data Marts, answers can still be different. What does it take to achieve true Data Confidence?

Ensuring Data Integrity

This Data Confidence Foundation is the key to ensuring data integrity. When we design a new data warehouse or re-architect or augment existing data stores, we take specific steps to ensure that the end users have complete confidence in the data.  

Business users who do not understand the data
cannot have confidence in the data

Users who don’t understand how the data is represented in the formal Data Repository or Data Warehouse, means they don’t trust the data. This will cause business users to gather information incorrectly. This lack of understanding will cause users on all levels to augment and manually adjust the data themselves because they cannot find what they need, due to insufficient knowledge of the processes, tools, and/or the data itself.

Data Confidence Foundation

1 - User-Focused Development

2 - Quality Governance Compliance

3 - Metadata Integration Assurance

4 - Change-Enabled Architecture

5 - Accelerated Continuous Improvement

Data Confidence Defined

At LoganBritton, our goal is to help your company gain complete confidence in the data that you used to make strategic business decisions. Each of our solutions is designed with the underlying goal of giving your users utmost confidence and usability from your data.

We provide solid business-driven solutions based on a proven architecture and deployed over a sound infrastructure, in a highly cost-effective manner. Delivering a positive return on investment is a fundamental goal of each of our Data Confidence Solutions. LoganBritton’s Data Confidence Foundation consists of five fundamental pillars.

Pillar One – User-Focused Development

The best-designed products and services result from understanding the needs of the people who will use them.

From the earliest stages of analysis, LoganBritton’s engineers engage actively with end users to gather insights that drive design, right through the implementation process. While most analysts and designers are conscious of the need to design for end users, they often base their understanding of users on their own experience or on findings from market research.

In contrast, LoganBritton’s engineers engage directly with potential users, because we believe that a deep understanding of individuals' experience gives greater insight into the success criteria of an implementation.

Many standard design projects also involve user feedback in the latter stages of concept development. But LoganBritton’s engineers start engaging with users during the early, formative stages to set the agenda for their projects, rather than waiting until it may be too late to make significant changes.

Pillar Two– Quality Governance and Compliance

Sarbanes-Oxley is motivating executives to require governance and compliance mechanisms to ensure data integrity.

Data warehouses have become the foundational infrastructure for strategic decision making. However, in most cases, the quality of corporate data warehouses remains unmeasured. The demands of Sarbanes-Oxley are driving companies to implement quality, governance and compliance mechanisms into their corporate infrastructures. We believe that it is essential to treat Data Quality Governance and Compliance controls as a key business driver for every decision support project we undertake.

Data Quality

This includes the identification, visibility, storage, and management of every data exception at every level of data interaction. LoganBritton understands that the key to an effective governance and compliance initiative is rigorous data quality, and we have a very structured approach to designing and implementing data quality and exception management controls within every solution we deliver.

Data Governance

Data Governance is the practice of implementing controls, policies, and procedures for the effective stewardship of your organization's information assets.  Once you are able to identify data quality issues, you must have a way to systematically collect, measure and improve the accuracy of your data. LoganBritton believes that these control mechanisms can no longer be implemented as an afterthought but must be incorporated into the core design of every solution we deliver. A comprehensive and effective Data Governance initiative includes not only Data Quality, but also Metadata Management and Master Data Management all working in close cooperation with each other.

Compliance

While sound Data Quality and Data Governance processes are the core of a successful compliance program, these programs must also provide statistical results. However, most organizations have multiple information systems, processes and databases that are not integrated at the metadata level and therefore are unable to provide a 360 degree view of all the factors contributing to their compliance requirements. LoganBritton understands that metadata integration is a key element toward delivering the framework and provides metadata integration tools and techniques needed to build a sound corporate compliance program.

Pillar Four - Change-Enabled Architecture

In every business there is only one universal constant. Change will happen.

Your success depends on your ability to accommodate that change quickly, with greater flexibility and with minimal risk. IT executives continually look for strategies that will enhance their ability to rapidly respond to changing business conditions. A common perception is that IT is not responsive to business needs because they can't keep up with changes in business requirements.

LoganBritton has been successful because we understand how to deliver solutions based on a Change-Enabled Architecture. This simply means that solutions are architected to accommodate continual changes in business requirements as your company grows and your business landscape changes.

One key to architecting Change-Enabled solutions is user involvement. No one better understands the impact of potential changes than the business users who daily rely on that data. We involve the users early on in the project to help define which aspects of the solution will be impacted by changing business requirements.

The second key to a Change-Enabled Architecture is an approach that uses:

While no solution is immune from the effects of changing business requirements, applications based on a Change-Enabled Architecture will be more agile, and result in less IT trauma and less risk.

Pillar Five - Accelerated Continuous Improvement

If you can't measure it, you can't manage it.
If you can't manage it, you can't improve it.
If you can't improve it, you can't depend on it.

LoganBritton believes that to sustain Data Confidence, there must be a process in place for Accelerated Continuous Improvement. We work with your organization to leverage what is working well and adjust where things could be done better. We will introduce and recommend process and procedures that will assist you in this effort.

Feedback mechanisms are an inherent part of each of our solutions and contribute directly to the reliability and integrity of your solution.