Data creates value through decisions
Build data capabilities around a decision or service whose performance the organisation can improve.
Data creates business value when people use it to improve a decision, a service, or an operating outcome. More storage and more dashboards can support that work, but neither establishes the benefit on its own.
Start with the action the organisation wants to improve. Define the information it requires, the person responsible for acting, and the result that would justify the investment. This gives data architecture a practical direction.
Connect information to action
Consider an illustrative team trying to improve delivery commitments. It needs a dependable view of demand, available material, capacity, and current work. The useful outcome is a better commitment and a timely response when conditions change.
The team should therefore identify the data that affects that decision, the quality it requires, and the point at which the information must be available. A technically complete dataset can still be too late, too ambiguous, or too difficult to use.
Choose architecture for the need
A warehouse, lake, hub, or another arrangement can serve different analytical and operational purposes. My original essay examined their potential to complement one another. The practical choice should follow the required use, existing foundations, and cost of maintaining the architecture.
Avoid adding components simply because an ambitious reference model includes them. Explain what each component enables, how information moves through it, and who is responsible for the quality and meaning of that information.
Develop the people and ownership around the data
Useful data needs agreed definitions, accountable owners, appropriate access, and a route for resolving problems. People also need to understand the limits of the information and how it should influence their judgment.
Begin with a bounded use case and measure the effect on the decision or service. Expand when the evidence supports reuse and the foundations can carry the additional demand.
A data strategy becomes credible through this connection to action. Leaders should be able to explain what the organisation can now decide or deliver better, and how the data capability contributes to that improvement.
Revised from my original essay on The Loop. This edition develops the argument for a leadership audience; the original preserves its coursework context and bibliography.
Original article: The Loop, 3 October 2025.