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Data is the lifeblood of modern business. That was the clear message from Frankie Steele, Vice President for Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) at Synity, an IT company specialising in enterprise data management, during a recent interview.

Synity, often describing itself as "the data company," works with enterprise customers around the globe, helping them to solve their most complex data challenges. "We're a global software and services organisation that's passionate about helping enterprise customers solve their complex data challenges," Steele said. He explained that the company uses a mix of data expertise, intelligent software, and artificial intelligence to deliver improved business outcomes.

At the centre of Synity's offering is the Synergy Knowledge Platform, a single platform providing end-to-end capabilities around data migration, data quality, data replication and master data management. "We provide all of these capabilities in a single platform which helps our customers to unlock the value of their data," Steele said.

Steele's role as Vice President for ANZ is focused on both nurturing existing customer relationships and driving growth across Australia and New Zealand. "I'm responsible for customers and the growth of our business across Australia and New Zealand," Steele explained.

Good data management, according to Steele, is crucial for business success. "Data can impact all aspects of business - revenue, cost of goods sold, working capital and ultimately, profitability," he said. Businesses can harness their data about customers, operations and vendors to gain valuable insights, "to help them to grow their customer base, address new markets, address changes in customer demand, reduce costs and drive efficiencies, go to market faster – the list goes on."

But Steele warned that the opposite is also true. "Good data can have a positive effect on organisations, but equally bad data can either bring your business to a standstill or at least have a really damaging effect," he said. He gave the example of customer data: errors can affect revenue, logistics, billing and customer satisfaction, particularly for organisations trying to personalise customer experiences or obtain a complete view of their customer base. "Organisations that are looking to try and individualise the customer experience or get a 360-degree view of their customer will be impacted if the customer data is inaccurate," he explained.

The financial cost of poor data can be eye-watering. "Some studies estimate the impact of bad data on revenue can be about 12%. So when you're talking about businesses whose revenues are in the millions or even billions, that 12% becomes a really large number very, very quickly," Steele added.

Steele believes that enterprise data management must be a core priority. "Data has the potential to improve literally every aspect of business and that's why enterprise data management is so important. At Synity, we make it easier for our customers to do that in one platform," he said.

Of course, the last 12 months presented heightened challenges for businesses adapting to rapid change, according to Steele. "The biggest challenge businesses are facing today is the rate of change and their ability to be agile to address that change," he said. He noted that the COVID-19 pandemic had only accelerated this challenge for companies around the world.

"In response, data transformation and making the most out of digital data is on everybody's agenda at the moment," Steele said, though he lamented that the journey is often a fraught one. "It's reported about 70 percent of digital transformations fail because of bad data quality," he noted.

Another challenge for organisations is bridging the gap between their recognition of data as a strategic asset and the actions they take. "It's viewed and often said that data is a strategic business asset, yet often the decisions about data are afterthoughts, or poorly funded, or it's left to the IT teams or data teams, rather than the ownership sitting within the business," Steele said.

Synity, according to Steele, works to close these gaps by offering a single platform for data quality and delivery of trusted, business-ready data. "We help to drive the collaboration between the business owners, the IT, the data teams, and even the external third-party providers such as systems integrators. This helps to bring to the business trusted, well-managed data which allows companies to make better decisions, respond to changing market dynamics, and ultimately to unlock the potential of data as a strategic business asset," Steele stated.

Looking ahead, Synity's focus remains on helping organisations harness data as a core competitive advantage, especially as the company expands both its core business and through recent acquisitions. "Globally we are growing fast both in terms of our core business, but also through recent acquisition," Steele said, calling it an exciting time for the company and its customers. "This unlocks exciting opportunities for our existing customers plus future customers."

Specifically in the ANZ region, Synity is investing heavily in partner capability, responding to growing demand for both software and expertise. "In ANZ specifically, we're really investing and strongly building out partner capability to continue to address the growth and demand that we're seeing for both our software and our expertise," Steele explained. "It's a really exciting time to be at Synity, it's a really exciting time to be focused on data and on business transformation."

Steele finished on an optimistic note, looking forward to continuing to help ANZ businesses navigate an ever-evolving landscape with data at the core. "So just give us a call – we'll be more than happy to help and have a chat," he said.