White Paper

Defining a
data strategy
An essential component of your
digital transformation journey
 White Paper

Table of contents
All organizations engage with, operate on and leverage
The data strategy vision 2
data every day across a variety of business functions. Those
Data strategy defined 3 organizations that take a holistic approach to adopting an
Four common drivers 3 enterprise-grade data strategy are able to optimize their
Eight components of a technology investments and lower their costs.
winning data strategy 4
Organizations that want a smooth transition to becoming data
Implementing, driven need a plan for advancing their digital transformation
maintaining and
journey and treating data as a corporate asset. Creating a
evolving 7
data strategy is the first step toward defining and enabling
A holistic approach 8
such a plan.

The data strategy vision

All organizations make decisions about how they engage with, operate on and
leverage their data — whether at an enterprise or project level. Companies that
form a holistic point of view in adopting an enterprise-grade data strategy are well
positioned to optimize their technology investments and lower their costs. Such a
strategy treats data as an asset from which valuable insights can be derived. These
insights can be used to gain a competitive advantage by being integrated into
business operations.

Organizations that want a smooth transition to becoming data driven — aligning

operational decisions to the systematic (and automatic as much as possible)
interpretation of data — need a plan for advancing their digital transformation
journey and treating data as a corporate asset. Creating a data strategy is the first
step toward enabling such a plan and increasing the organization’s Analytics IQ. This
term refers to an organization’s ability to deploy advanced analytics at every point of
interaction — human as well as machine — to continuously improve decision-making
quality and accuracy.

A data strategy ensures that all data initiatives follow a common method and
structure that is repeatable. This uniformity enables efficient communication
throughout the enterprise for rationalizing and defining all solution designs that
leverage data in some manner.

Many organizations fail to prioritize defining a data strategy on the grounds that it’s
either a case of “boiling the ocean” or else an “infinity project” that will deliver little
value. In both cases, they’re incorrect. Creating a data strategy is both achievable
and valuable. It’s also an essential component of any organization’s digital
transformation journey.

Companies that embrace the constructs of a data strategy often define dedicated
roles to own these strategies and policies. This ranges from augmenting executive staff
and IT staff with roles such as chief data officer and chief data strategist, respectively,
to expanding the responsibilities of traditional enterprise data architects.

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Data strategy defined

A data strategy is a common reference of methods, services, architectures, usage
patterns and procedures for acquiring, integrating, storing, securing, managing,
monitoring, analyzing, consuming and operationalizing data. It is, in effect, a
checklist for developing a roadmap toward the digital transformation journey that
companies are actively pursuing as part of their modernization efforts. This includes
clarifying the target vision and practical guidance for achieving that vision, with
All aspects of a clearly articulated success criteria and key performance indicators that can be used
to evaluate and rationalize all subsequent data initiatives.
data strategy should
A data strategy does not contain a detailed solution to use cases and specific
be agile and deliver
technical problems. Nor is it limited to high-level constructs intended only for senior
frequent, iterative value leadership. Sustaining a successful data strategy requires executive sponsorship
to the business. Such and governance for alignment with corporate objectives and enforced adherence. As
corporate objectives evolve, so should the data strategy — keeping up not only with
agility enables the how the business is operating but also with how supporting technologies and related
strategy to evolve over innovations are maturing.
time, changing as the
Four common drivers
organization changes
Though the impetus for creating a data strategy can vary from one organization
and allowing for input
to the next, there are four common drivers:
and recommendations
• Unification of business and IT perspectives. A common data strategy ensures
from all levels of the that the business and IT organizations are positioned as joint leaders of the
organization. company’s direction by understanding each other’s needs, capabilities and
priorities. In this way companies can adopt a “business-led/technology-enabled”
approach for not only internal operations but also vendor and
partner collaborations.

• Enterprise-wide alignment of vision and guidance on leveraging data as

an asset. Such alignment, captured in a data strategy, ensures that different
groups in the enterprise view data-related capabilities with consistency, which
reduces redundancy and confusion. Repeatability, a key outcome of consistency,
reduces operational cost and optimizes performance due to higher quality
and reusability.

• Definition of key metrics and success criteria across the enterprise. The
data strategy defines “success” and “quality,” thus reinforcing consistency
for how initiatives are measured, evaluated and tracked across all levels of
interacting organizations.

• Reduction of technology debt. Current-state legacy implementations have often

become “technology debt” — the existing investment in legacy technology that
may be providing limited business value in relation to cost, performance or quality
needs, or is hindering the adoption of innovative technology or business practices.
These barriers to innovation are both costly and complex to alter. A data strategy
takes the current state of the enterprise data environments and operations into
account and provides guidance for applying innovation with minimal disruption to
ongoing business operations.

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By addressing these drivers in a data strategy, organizations can enable various

initiatives at scale, which can yield a utility-like service that provides a “supply chain
of insights.” A utility in this context refers to a hardened solution delivered as an
end-user-focused service, with the entire supply chain that produces and delivers
the insights abstracted from the consumer. It is similar to the way electricity is
delivered via a power outlet in the home, with the entire power industry infrastructure
abstracted from the consumer.

A supply chain of insights is a production-grade workflow for the transformation

of data to actionable insights; this workflow encompasses ingestion, analytics,
consumption and operationalization. (See Figure 1.) A data strategy allows
companies to abstract the technical and operational complexities from the end user
of these utility services, further maturing the target visions for self-service.

Consume
insights
Access and Automate Distribute
collect data insight insights
Conform creation
and enrich
information

Figure 1. Supply chain of insights

Eight components of a winning data strategy

To ensure that a data strategy incorporates the full scope necessary to
provide enterprise-wide guidance, organizations should include the following
foundational components:

1. Semantics: A company-specific glossary of definitions for all terms and topics

related to data, its handing and use.

2. Goals/vision and rationalization: A common explanation of the data strategy’s

importance and goals. Unique IT and business perspectives should be represented
here, along with a clear correlation with the organization’s strategic business
goals. One of the most important elements to define is the data maturity model
used to evaluate the current state. This model also will be used to structure the
data strategy roadmap, a main tool in practical implementation of the strategy.

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3. Strategic principles: Common standards and methodologies that an organization

adheres to across all of its data efforts. These are typically business-focused
principles but have a direct impact on the enabling technical design principles and
functionality. Technical design principles are included in the reference architecture
portion of the data strategy.

4. Current-state documentation: The business operations and technical

implementations that capture how the organization’s data operations function
today. This content is used as the baseline for evaluating enterprise capabilities,
Organizations should include
their health and maturity in the context of the data strategy vision.
eight components in their
data strategy:
5. Governance model:
1. Semantics • Compliance and standards: Data standards, procedures and compliance
2. Goals/vision and criteria that the organization must adhere to for regulatory reasons, and those
rationalization they voluntarily wish to adopt.

3. Strategic principles • Change management: Methods and standards by which change across the
data strategy scope is introduced, evaluated, confirmed and conformed into the
4. Current-state documentation
iterative evolution and communication of the data strategy iterations. This includes
5. Governance model crowdsourcing contribution of edits, ideas and related communications from all
6. Data management guidance levels of the organization. Change management also defines how deviations and
exceptions to the strategy standards are identified, documented and handled.
7. Reference architecture
• Workflow guidance: Procedures and methods for defining and managing the
8. Sample and starter
data and solution life cycles, including operational and support-control handoffs.
solution library
• Organizational structures: Guidance on how human resources and
interactions should be defined, maintained and scaled within the scope of
data-related activities. This also includes proper skill set definitions for all
such resources.

6. Data management guidance: Standards and processes for managing data

elements, their attributes and groupings, including:

• Data topics: Groupings of functionally related data that operate above the
data model level of table/columns or file content. (Note: Data governance
policies are often applied at the data topic level rather than to the raw data.)

• Metadata: Supplementary information about the data being managed and

operated upon. This metadata is typically managed separately from the data it
describes, even if some of the metadata may be sourced from the same systems
in the same feeds as raw data.

• Data stewardship/curation/security/audits: Processes that ensure data

is properly cataloged, of high quality and correctly secured for proper
authorization by approved users.

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7. Reference architecture: A good reference architecture takes into account

existing or legacy standards and implementations, and allows for new
standards and innovations to be integrated into a hybrid model that continues
to support the organization as it evolves and grows. The key aspects of a data
architecture include:

• Architectural design principles: Foundational technical goals and guidance

for all data solutions. These principles help to ensure consistency across the
domains that the data strategy influences.

• Domain and function model: The listing and definitions for core groupings
of technical capabilities and their detailed definitions, including associated
interactions supporting full data life cycle and use/exploitation, from discovery
and experimentation to production-hardened operation.

• Data usage patterns (with alignment to domain/functional mapping):

Groupings of solutions that share common functional and technical
requirements, such as data discovery, data science or operational
decision support.

• Design patterns: High-level solution templates for common repeatable

architecture modules, such as ingestion for batch vs. stream, data storage in
data lakes vs. relational databases, data harmonization for multiple sources
and data access by different user profiles.

• Tool mapping/function matrix: A catalog listing of tools aligned across the

functional capabilities model with preferences and primary-fit evaluations.

• Tool rationalizations: Documented guidance and points of view about

when certain tools should be used, with supporting justifications. Such
rationalizations include viewpoints and explanations of how different tools
should be used in conjunction with other tools and with different
design patterns.

8. Sample and starter solution library: A collection of predesigned solutions based

on proactive assumptions and the harvesting of existing implementations. These
are often leveraged as illustrative examples and accelerators for future solutions.

• Logical solution models: High-level solution patterns that can be applied in

leveraging multiple tools and environments.

• Physical designs: Designs optimized for specific tool combinations and

interactions that can be reused as standard accelerators.

• Prebuilt code and intellectual property (IP): Collateral that can be used for
automation or accelerators.

• Partner solution catalog: A listing of prebuilt services, APIs and packages that
are sourced from external vendors and partnerships.

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Implementing, maintaining and evolving

A data strategy has to account for how an organization plans to mature its data-
centric capabilities and enable new data- and analytics-based products and
services to mature. A data strategy roadmap is a tactical short-term and long-term
plan of initiatives to achieve this, captured by the data strategy in the target state
vision. This plan is used to articulate the phases and iterations for each of the key
data strategy components above. All data-related initiatives should align to the
overall data strategy roadmap and, in turn, align to the overall data strategy an
organization adopts and evolves.

It is important to ensure that the first iterations of implementing the data strategy
are achievable and deliver measurable value before pursuing higher maturity goals.
Often, it is enough to start defining and implementing the data strategy across its
components, without driving any of them to their ultimate state of maturity. To gain
the greatest benefit, however, organizations should develop the following components
to a well-defined state as a prerequisite to most tactical implementations:

• Goals and vision must be identified and documented up front. One of the
simpler efforts, it is often neglected despite bringing the broadest consistency
and credibility. Many organizations misspend millions of dollars and countless
work hours developing solutions that are misaligned with their own core principles
and goals.

• Strategic principles are high-level constraints to be captured before making any

design decisions and implementations. These principles drive and validate every
decision made with regard to the data strategy.

• The reference architecture should be well framed and communicated ahead

of any technical decisions related to data. The reference architecture drives the
technical point of view for tool selection and solution designs. It encourages the
adoption of templates and structures for capturing and defining patterns and
rationalizations so that they can evolve and be reused by a broader community
of architects.

The ability to operate across hybrid legacy and new technologies — which in
turn can be deployed across on-premises, cloud and geographic instances — is
heavily dependent on proper reference architecture definitions from the start,
with vigilance toward continued innovation and evolution.

• Governance is not only important to deploy as early in the digital transformation

journey as possible but is often compulsory. Companies need the ability to monitor,
audit and control their data and its use to ensure proper liability management and
communication management throughout the entire solution life cycle. The detailed
content may evolve over time, but the structures, trigger controls and ownership
responsibilities need to be defined and set up as early as possible. This will
ensure that proper roles and checklists are in place as the data strategy and data
solutions evolve and mature from one iteration to the next with minimal disruption
to business operations.

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Many other aspects of the data strategy are certainly important, and they can
be iterated as need and maturity dictate. But they typically follow a more organic
process, one that requires less up-front effort. Instead, these aspects typically
involve a harvesting effort in which previous iterations are turned into repeatable and
reusable guidance and collateral.

Harvesting is a common approach. The key prerequisite for successful harvesting is

to establish document templates that can catalog approaches for capturing what
has been learned and collateral information. In this way, a data strategy becomes
Next steps: a “living document” and evolves through continuous improvement, with well-defined
• Read the “Thriving on change-management governance.
Enterprise Data and Analytics” As with any business or technical process, a data strategy has its own life cycle of
white paper. continual evolution, maturity, change and scale. Aspects of the data strategy —
• Take the Analytics IQ self- including its principles, tools and technology definition — will need to be revisited
assessment. periodically and kept aligned with market trends, new technologies and changing
business priorities. The key is to recognize, interpret and react to such change quickly
• Learn more about DXC and efficiently when it happens.
Analytics and contact us
about a data strategy and Defining an operating model and a cadence of checkpoints for the business and IT
architecture advisory effort, to stay informed and engaged is a powerful governance approach to making a data
including review of your strategy effective. Every major transformation — for example, modernizing a data
current efforts. warehouse — will need both a roadmap plan and an operating model before it can
get started.
• Engage in an internal data
strategy initiative to formulate An architecture review board is often created by the data governance organization
a holistic strategy point of to monitor whether all projects are properly adhering to the standards and tool
view and harvest available guidance, and to oversee proposed changes to such guidance.
collateral.
A holistic approach
Managing the dynamic, ever-growing landscape of data technology and fluctuating
business operations requires clear and consistent communication and guidance.
To drive continuous improvement in your data strategy as you evolve it for each
technology and business initiative, we recommend taking these steps:

• Read the “Thriving on Enterprise Data and Analytics” white paper.

• Take the Analytics IQ self-assessment.

• Learn more about DXC Analytics and contact us about a data strategy and
architecture advisory effort, including review of your current efforts.

• Engage in an internal data strategy initiative to formulate a holistic strategy point

of view and harvest available collateral.

Organizations that adopt a holistic data strategy are able to manage the challenges
of adopting and adapting innovation efficiently into existing operations. Without a
holistic data strategy, organizations risk internal miscommunication and inefficient use
of data technology, delayed time to market and poor-quality solutions. Accelerate your
digital transformation and define your data strategy now.

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About the authors

Aleksey Gurevich is the chief technology officer for DXC’s
Analytics practice in the Americas. In this role, Alex provides
thought leadership about applying digital innovation and
technology toward solving customer business problems. He
has a special focus on designing and planning solutions to
make clients’ digital transformation journeys more data-driven
through the enhanced use of advanced data analytics.

Srijani Dey is the chief solutions architect for DXC’s Analytics

practice. Srijani is a turnaround specialist with extensive
experience in leading teams from vision to design to execution
of complex, highly scalable data management and analytics
solutions that leverage the latest commercial and open source
technical innovations.

Learn more at
www.dxc.technology/
analytics

About DXC Technology

DXC Technology (DXC: NYSE) is the world’s leading independent, end-to-end IT services company, helping
clients harness the power of innovation to thrive on change. Created by the merger of CSC and the Enterprise
Services business of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, DXC Technology serves nearly 6,000 private and public
sector clients across 70 countries. The company’s technology independence, global talent and extensive
partner network combine to deliver powerful next-generation IT services and solutions. DXC Technology is
recognized among the best corporate citizens globally. For more information, visit www.dxc.technology.

www.dxc.technology © 2018 DXC Technology Company. All rights reserved. MD_7257a-18.January 2018