INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Software for Business

A key requirement for digital business transformation to move forward is to have access to data outside of silos created by applications and databases.

By Arun Shankar

The process of business transformation begins with data. The journey usually starts in the datacentre where storing, preserving and guaranteeing the availability of data is a central part. But a challenge that businesses face is to transform data into something more meaningful usually referred to as business outcome.

“ Our mission at Hitachi Data Systems is to turn data into value. We take the ones and zeros that we have been storing for so many years and turn it into something meaningful. Financial services companies are now calling themselves IT companies that deliver financial services. It is information and their use of financial information that sets them apart,” explains Peter Sjoberg, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Hitachi Data Systems.

Hitachi as an industrial business has been in existence for more than a hundred years, since the advent of the electric motors. A key competency has been its ability to integrate industrial and operational systems and data into one solution. Control systems within Hitachi’ s industrial solutions produce vast quantities of data. Now through its new One Hitachi group approach, it is integrating a third component into its legacy core strength, information technology.

“ We have created the Hitachi Insight Group specifically focused on gaining control of data, allowing analysis and insight to be done against the data to produce an outcome, and that is what we really see coming together,” says Sjoberg.“ The ability to create and leverage data is not why they

Peter Sjoberg is Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Hitachi Data Systems

exist, but to provide better outcomes. The industrial and operational side is important to us and drives our company.”

Going forward Hitachi is offering its railway as a service approach to deliver successful outcomes to its future railway customers as a business and sales model. This forward looking service takes over a railway system to deliver passengers on time. The ability to control and manage a railway system using a combination of operational and information technology, allows Hitachi to deliver better service and results.“ Turning ones and zeros of data into value is everything, leading to better outcomes and better railway systems.”

The process of generating business outcomes from data starts by getting control over data wherever it is being generated. By default, data inside a datacentre is siloed by application or by database, separating it and limiting its ability to be used. Once the data is under control by moving it out of the silos, it needs to be ingested. This allows it to be used, transformed and leveraged. This is the first and most crucial step, points out Sjoberg.“ People do not recognise that.”

There are other peripheral steps that need to be added to complete the cyclic process. The data needs to be governed so that there is predictable control. It needs to be augmented by metadata, enriching the core objects, allowing comparison and generation of analytics. It needs to be monetised by developing

Key takeaways

• A requirement of business transformation is to guarantee the right of data protection across entire lifecycle

• By default data inside a datacentre is siloed by application or by database limiting its ability to be used

• Process of business transformation begins with data

• Process of generating business outcomes from data starts by getting control over data wherever it is being generated

• Turning ones and zeros of data into value is everything leading to outcomes

• While the application can still see and access data its siloed connections are replaced by more open architecture

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