Video: 10 Minute IT Jams - An update from Denodo
Data is reshaping the way organisations operate. In recent years, demand for data-driven decision-making has soared, pushing businesses and governments alike to adapt rapidly to new digital realities. This week, Ben Hinchel, Regional Vice President and General Manager for Australia and New Zealand at Denodo, shared his perspective on the evolution of data maturity and what lies ahead for data management.
Reflecting on changes since the pandemic, Hinchel highlighted just how central data has become to contemporary organisations. "The increase in demand on data-driven decision-making across pretty much every enterprise and government institution has been at the forefront of boards and CEOs and general managers' requirements," he said. Changes spurred by remote work have forced organisations to reconsider their approach, making data maturity a critical issue.
Hinchel pointed out that maturity now centres on access, trust, and the timeliness of data. "Do I have access to the data? Can I trust the data? How timely is it? Does it help or dilute the decision making or the role that I'm doing?" he asked, outlining the questions business leaders must grapple with daily. Ultimately, he sees the next phase as being about fostering innovation. "Can I innovate and answer questions about my role or what I'm trying to do in a much more exploratory and self-service way?" This, however, remains an elusive goal for many. "That ability to answer questions that we don't know yet or want to explore, but because we don't have the data or it's not timely or don't trust it, that is really, really a frustrating and a fractious thing that organisations have with their maturity of data," he explained.
When asked if the pandemic continues to define the landscape, Hinchel stressed that the conditions differ by industry. "I would be disingenuous if I said it's the same for every sector," he stated. Digitally advanced industries, such as banking, have already gone through substantial digitisation, but other sectors – including mining, health services and supply chain management – have, according to Hinchel, been "catapulted into making data a front and centre first class citizen in their strategies."
He cited supply chain as a classic example of a sector now deeply reliant on data for optimisation and resilience. "Data is incredibly important in trying to optimise and make resilient decisions about how you support and improve supply chain," he added, noting this is especially relevant given ongoing geopolitical and workforce challenges.
The concept of data virtualisation has become increasingly prominent as organisations strive for greater data agility and insight. According to Hinchel, understanding of this approach across the region varies widely. He categorised organisations into three groups: "You've got really forward leaning organisations that understand the unique approach to data integration management and delivery through the principles of data virtualisation as a way to accelerate that – we call that time to information and time to decisioning." The second group, he said, remain rooted in earlier approaches, relying on consolidation models such as warehouses or data lakes, and running federated queries. "That's a little bit more old school, which is not really the correct way to view [data virtualisation]," he remarked.
A third group, he explained, are leaning into the latest analyst guidance on "data fabrics" and "data meshes". "Their research is pointing towards data virtualisation as part of the critical path to enabling a data fabric and a data mesh organisational and technological capability for data management, data creation, data services, data delivery and data governance," he explained.
In terms of industry growth for Denodo, Hinchel was emphatic about the platform's widespread applicability. "It's almost like a ubiquitous data management data delivery platform that is in every major industry, so it's not any industry in particular that is taking a larger slice of our business," he said. He listed finance, insurance, education, health, government, border security, logistics and transportation, life sciences, manufacturing, retail, and energy as key sectors, but maintained, "I couldn't say it's one versus the other because data is driving change of organisational improvement, productivity, cost savings, preemptive aspects of resilience and organisational change. It really is, so it's across the board."
Looking ahead, Hinchel outlined three areas Denodo is investing in. The first is improving data governance. "Governance is a huge, huge area that organisations are investing a lot of time and energy in people and resource," he said, adding that the company is enriching its ability to provide better tagging and semantic tagging of data so it is more usable, searchable, and meaningful for business users. He stressed the growing role of data stewards and governance roles. "Anybody who's done anything with data knows that they've had a fractious relationship with trying to use it because they can't read it properly, and that's where data stewards and data governance comes in."
The second focus is further enhancing cloud migration capabilities. Hinchel noted that Denodo has always supported cloud interoperability, but ongoing investment will ensure organisations can continue to combine cloud and non-cloud data efficiently. "We're spending a lot of time further investing and making sure that Denodo is a first-class citizen for helping organisations combine cloud and non-cloud data to make it ubiquitous and easily accessible across those source systems," he said.
Third, Denodo is working on improving how it delivers services through cloud marketplace offerings. "This is a way to continue to enhance the ubiquitous accessibility of the Denodo platform through the big three cloud providers and make that time to set up and time to consume much easier and simpler," Hinchel said.
As the rapid pace of change shows no sign of slowing, Hinchel expects awareness around advanced data management to keep rising – but he acknowledges the journey is far from over for many organisations. "That ability to answer questions that we don't know yet or want to explore, but because we don't have the data or it's not timely or don't trust it, that is really, really a frustrating and a fractious thing," he concluded.
