‘We are going to do something completely new, something that has never been done before.’ These were once prophetic words, but they have now become so ‘contaminated’ by the aura of major failures that they are only very occasionally uttered. We shall certainly not do so here. Moreover, we are actually conveying old news. In this Compact you will find no theme that will be wholly strange to you. But please do not stop reading now, we promise you that it is absolutely worthwhile to continue.
The theme of this Compact, Enterprise Data Management, may not be new in a formal sense, but it is genuinely innovative. Every organization, from the director down to a common member of staff, currently recognizes the strategic value of data. But, in general, most organizations only engage in a part of the solution. For example, the improvement of data quality has often been articulated as a much-desired wish and, in real-life practice, the step toward the management of source data is indeed being taken. But who has the vision and insight to recognize that initiating data governance in combination with data archiving and a focus on Big Data could possibly produce more rapid results? Some themes, such as data security and business intelligence for example, have indeed been around for quite a time. But putting them in the wider perspective of Enterprise Data Management is relatively new. This Compact deals fairly extensively with this perspective, while various sub-aspects such as security, archiving and master data management are also further elaborated.
We hope that a reading of this Compact may provide you with a moment of enlightenment and that you will allocate data the place on the agenda that they deserve. After all, without data we are going nowhere. But you knew that, of course.
Ronald Jonker, KPMG IT Advisory
Jeroen Tegelaar, KPMG IT Advisory
