The finance subsidiary of a major automotive company engaged Projective Group five years ago to develop and implement a data management roadmap for the US, UK, and China. Along the way, our focus shifted from data governance to other key areas like business adoption, cloud migration, and cost-benefit analysis. Over the course of this long-standing partnership, we’ve delivered a broad spectrum of data management capabilities to support their enterprise objectives.
Data governance and beyond
Our client is the finance subsidiary of a major global automotive company, providing financing solutions to customers who wish to buy their vehicles. As such, they are regulated as a bank in global jurisdictions. We started working with this client five years ago, initially focusing on data governance for specific regulatory requirements. However, it became clear that a more comprehensive approach was needed. “We started to develop more of the foundations of data management: data quality, master data management, data cataloguing and classification… Always, of course, aligning these foundational capabilities with the strategic business objectives,” says Scott Beange, who has been working with the client from the beginning. “The fact that our engagement spanned three geographic regions – the US, UK, and China – added an extra layer of complexity to our activities.”
The fact that our engagement spanned three geographic regions – the US, UK, and China – added an extra layer of complexity to our activities.
Business adoption for best results
Having built the data management foundations, the next step was business adoption. “A few years ago, while we were successfully building the foundations and stocking the data shelves, it became clear that the business buy-in wasn’t completely there,” says Scott. “That was a light bulb moment for me; I realised we had a gap. We needed a more cohesive approach to communication, awareness, and culture around data”.
Our solution? We developed our own Business Adoption Framework, which was unique in the market. We structured our efforts around business value, corporate communications, awareness and culture, training and education, operating model alignment, and data democratisation. “Implementing this cohesive framework really was a critical success factor for this client. It ensured that we achieved the best results possible.” Scott concludes.
Implementing a cohesive business adoption framework ensured we achieved the best results possible.
Data Champions training
After years of hard work putting the foundations in place and encouraging active participation from the business, the project has now been handed over. “We’ve still got a small team at the client to support them, but they’re now running it themselves,” says Scott. To ensure that the customer could move forward on their own, we implemented a Business Data Academy to support training and education. This academy provided a structured curriculum and e-learning platform that allowed individuals to progress from entry-level data skills to becoming ‘Data Champions’, who are able to successfully support the business owners and stewards.
The true value of data
An area that has come into focus more recently is the return on investment (ROI) in data. In response to the demand from businesses to understand the true value of their data investments, we have launched a Data ROI Playbook. “As with anything, it’s important to understand that the benefits outweigh the costs,” explains Scott. “We looked at the direct cost-benefit analysis of the use case, which allowed the customer to measure the value of their data investment. But the data itself also has value. We explored the intrinsic value of data by improving its quality and demonstrating how data can impact the organisation’s bottom line.”
We looked at the direct cost-benefit analysis, allowing the customer to measure the true value of their data investment.
Heading to the cloud
We’ve also done a lot of work with this client on migrating their data to the cloud and ensuring that any potential risks are mitigated. “There are many important issues to consider when migrating to the cloud, for which there needs to be a use case. For example, data sovereignty: what happens if you put European data into a US cloud? You must track it.” says Scott. That’s where the Cloud Data Management Capabilities (CDMC) framework comes in. We’ve introduced CDMC webinars and conducted assessments to mitigate the risks associated with migrating data to the cloud, accelerating the customer’s cloud adoption while always ensuring data sovereignty and security.
Conclusion
Our work with this client has been a strategic and results-oriented journey, leveraging data management capabilities to address their challenges and drive success. We have helped them build strong data management foundations, supported them with enterprise-wide business adoption, and helped them mitigate the risks of their cloud adoption journey. We’ve also done a lot of work with them to prove the return on investment of their data initiatives. All in all, we’ve provided a holistic end-to-end solution to unlock the true potential of their data assets and align them with their overarching business goals. In a constantly evolving financial market, having a robust and comprehensive data strategy like this will be the key to long-term success.
About Projective Group
Established in 2006, Projective Group is a leading Financial Services change specialist. With deep expertise across practices in Data, Payments, Transformation and Risk & Compliance.
We are recognised within the industry as a complete solutions provider, partnering with clients in Financial Services to provide resolutions that are both holistic and pragmatic. We have evolved to become a trusted partner for companies that want to thrive and prosper in an ever-changing Financial Services landscape.
