Choosing the right platform for your data-led transformation

In this series of blog articles, we have covered why data is the key ingredient of any successful business initiative. Let’s summarize here what are the benefits for your business of having the right data and using it:

As our clients want to transform their companies into sustainable, transparent, trustworthy and people centric businesses, based on the responsible and efficient use of their data, we have worked with many of them in their data journey and in this post we covered what are the common characteristics we find in a successful data-led transformation program:

If your company has embarked in a data-led transformation you are probably working in the three topics above. Although the business value and the culture are critical, you might still be looking for a definition of what the “right” Data & AI platform is. Here you have some key features you should be looking for:

• A cloud platform, to provide the agility and scalability you need and allow you to generate quick wins and bring business value early on, with dedicated Data& AI services. Using cloud PaaS services, you can design your Data & AI Platform in a composable way and build the different, reusable modules as you need them for your business initiatives. With cloud you can add the storage, compute power and analytic services you need as you add more data products or more use cases. The Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform fully integrates all the cloud native databases, analytics, big data processing and governance you need to create an enterprise data & analytics platform, with some of the best of breed solutions such as CosmosDB or Power BI, just to name two.
• An open platform that lets you use the technologies you like and are familiar with. For example, Azure allows you to select from Spark to Tensorflow; you can use mostly any database you love like MySQL or PostgreSQL. Even more, Azure is the best cloud platform to integrate all the data solutions you already have on your company like SAP, SAS, Oracle, Informatica,…. You like it, you have it in Azure.
• A connected platform that allows consumption of your data inside and outside of your organization. Azure is the most comprehensive platform and any data architecture you decide is best from you, including Data-mesh, Federated Data Platforms and Data Marketplaces can be built on Azure. Azure is also your best choice to go beyond public cloud for data and enable the Cloud Continuum for covering your data use cases across on-prem, hybrid cloud and edge environments.
• A secure platform. No need to explain that, right? Azure is currently the most secure public cloud available at physical, logical and data level. From Privacy to Shrems II, Microsoft commitment to help you protect your data and facilitate your compliance is unmatched. Azure protects your data in-store, in-transit and now also in-use with Azure confidential computing.
• A future-proof AND user-oriented platform (and belief me, you want both!). A platform that stays ahead of the game in Cognitive Services, Artificial intelligence, Internet of things, Edge computing or Quantum computing, Azure is the cloud platform that puts users and usability at its core, from low-code / no-code to reinventing analytics with Azure Synapse, making the latest data and AI technologies available to every company and bringing you the latest technology.
• From the right business partner. As this is going to be a transformative journey, selecting the right technology partner is critical: you want a reliable, business oriented, long-term technology partner with the right vision of a Data & AI platform. During their more than 45 years, Microsoft has provided technology to enterprises with the commitment to stay a true partner and to provide long-term services to preserve your investments. Following this objective, Azure, Accenture and Avanade are working to create the industry-oriented data-driven clouds to help you adapt quickly to your business needs.

If you have selected Azure as your platform, Accenture and Avanade can provide you the best data platform, talent, assets, accelerators, and industry expertise to speed up and scale your efforts. Our long-standing commitment to help clients realize business value, coupled with our Data-led Transformation expertise and our plus 20-year partnership with Microsoft allows us to provide the mix of strategy, innovation, technological leadership and execution your data-led transformation needs.