Learn How You Can Make Unstructured Data Pay Dividends

Tim:

And just to quickly comment on the role that modern data management plays in each of those three technology trends, you mentioned hybrid cloud, and absolutely as the way forward for most organizations, including those in the financial sector, effective hybrid cloud strategy and modern data management go hand in hand because not all data can be stored in the cloud. This has to be consideration for FSIs because they have critical and sensitive workloads and applications that benefit from a mix of private cloud or on premise solutions and public cloud services. To get the most benefit from a hybrid cloud strategy, it's important to have an underlying data layer that can present your data where it needs to be in order to provide value. Technology such as object storage can be used to bridge that gap between your traditional and cloud locations. And when it comes to embracing machine learning and using AI to improve anything from regulatory compliance through to operations and customer service, you absolutely need to feed in relevant, clean, and reliable data. And when it comes to edge computing and data being captured and processed at the edge, this of course is another source of unstructured data needing the right policies and procedures in place to structure it as it's captured and stored, making it useful to the business. All of these tech trends require a focus on getting control of unstructured data. Okay, so last questions for you today Gunjan, is there a sense in the financial sector, the companies need to rip and replace in order to get control of the unstructured data? So from a practical perspective, when it comes to implementing, deploying and supporting hybrid cloud, AI and edge technologies and strategies, what are some steps that firms need to take to streamline the process and minimize the risks and pitfalls of those deployments?

Gunjan:

Yeah, yeah, no, that's a good point because technology deployment is usually all pervasive in the organization and then cannot happen in a silo with one person. Um, so I think some of the things to keep in mind the first in my mind is aligning the people aspect with the technology. And when I say people, I mean to include both the customers and the employees, our technology cannot be deployed just because it is a latest buzzword. One has to ensure that it is serving core customer needs, and there is a solid business use case behind it. The technology also has to make the lives of the employees better. Very simply, you know, what's in it for me is the term that employees need to understand to make sure that technology is kind of deployed smoothly across the firm. Clear benefits and use case is need to identify it and stated upfront. Um, I've also noticed that a phased and a focused approach helps him getting some early wins and then it ensures a much larger scale buy in and adoption. Um, the second step, uh, one can take or rather second aspect, one should keep in mind is to ensure that the new technologies are compatible with legacy systems. Uh, you know, the way technology is changing, uh, the pace at which it is very tempting to go on replacing the technology stack frequently, but that is impractical and very, very expensive. Uh, the new technology should instead be brought into augment and build upon what already exists. Um, I think it is also helpful to get some experts to kind of deploy the new technology, outsource this so that the employees in the farm are actually able to spend time in learning and using, um, uh, the new technology. And I think the final thing, one needs to keep in mind is to ensure that the risk of deploying a new technology is managed actively and kept to an optimum low. You know, this includes ensuring all your compliance and security issues are taken into account, you know, as well as parallel processing to minimize disruption of services, when the rollout is ready.

Tim:

So on that risk of deploying new technology, you really want to ensure that when you're building that new capability into your environment, you can do that without interrupting your existing processes. This can mean choosing technology that allows for that phased approach and not forcing the business to change because of what's happening in your data centre. Touching back on Gunjan's second point and the importance of compatibility and building on the infrastructure you already have. These are some of the big reasons we collaborate with other major technology vendors that are critical to our customers' environments and why we focus on building a strong ecosystem. We get that our customers have made investments and that they already have multi-vendor environments. We get that their existing legacy solutions still have life left in them, and they want to get the most value from these investments they can. We partner with other vendors to put together realistic solutions that are already integrated, even pre-configured or bundled. It's not about rip and replace. It's about modernizing so that you have something that works now as something that you can build on for what comes next. If you are overwhelmed by unstructured data, you're not alone. And we're sure you're seeing the gaps in your infrastructure right now. Let's make the grind challenge of unstructured data management together. I'm Tim Cridland and thanks for listening to our podcast. To find out more about how Hitachi Vantara is working with financial organization to get control of data and make it more valuable. Book some one on one time with me or another of our subject matter experts.