More than 130 Partner collaborators have been trained on Irion technologies in 2023, with an increasingly rich program of dedicated initiatives and content. The interest of consulting and system integration companies in the Irion EDM® platform and its distinctive elements continues to grow: this is the first balance of the new Partner Program with which Irion definitively launched its long-term strategy, now entirely focused on the development of the Enterprise Data Management software platform.
During the first Partner Workshop – held in November at the Turin headquarters – Irion’s SME (subject matter experts) discussed the essential criteria for developing Data Management projects in the “new normal”: a radically changed software market today, where quick decisions need to be made in an increasingly ambiguous and volatile environment. How to manage reputation and build reliability? That’s why this day of update and discussion with 18 participants: “A valuable opportunity to enable Partners in their go-to-market, highlighting the distinctive features of Irion’s offerings and how to position the platform for the needs of companies that want to pursue an effective data strategy,” emphasize Irion Partner Managers Antongiulio Donà and Giuseppe Tufano. More events with this format are planned in 2024, including in Milan and Rome.
Data (Driven) Journey: overcoming critical issues
Disconnected spreadsheets and unverified information proliferate in many companies: how to overcome these obstacles in data management? “Data cannot tell its reputation on its own: it should always carry metadata that tells its story and intended use. This kit needs to be built and associated with the consumption phase of the data. It is one of the keys to enabling modern data management,” explained Irion’s Domain Advisory Leader, Mario Vellella. “Data challenges can be different from what the CEO or business area has in mind. Often we try to pursue a technology goal by creating a rapid business solution, but that gets in the way of ‘layering’ what we’ve accomplished into reusable business processes. To put it differently: I need this data as soon as possible and I use it even in the absence of a quality, strategic approach.”
In practice, an organization’s Data Driven Journey today is anything but linear, and Partners, who are in close contact with companies in different sectors, know this well: “You need a flexible infrastructure to be able to do ‘pick up’ the functionality you need. Usually a first model of governance and architecture is implemented; it is unthinkable to do everything at once. An example? Companies that have suffered from technological obsolescence in their once profitable ‘cash cow’ services, (Blockbuster, Kodak, Blackberry just to name a few examples). In such cases, it is imperative to initiate ‘pasting’ activities to seek new revenues: the data strategy will involve breaking down silos to pool knowledge. If walls between applications were maintained, the company would expose itself to serious risks.”
DataOps change management
Among the distinguishing features of Irion EDM® highlighted during the event, Irion Presales Manager Enrico Galimberti emphasized the Customer Data Journey of Data Quality Governance and Data Marketplace and the need to have a tool that supports a Business Composable architecture, the new simplified offering with three editions (Foundation, Application, Premium) capable of covering the data management needs in any enterprise-from SMB to Enterprise-but also the fact that the platform is natively DataOps ready and therefore resilient to organizational and architectural changes and based on this innovative methodology, and which allows a “change line” concept to be applied to each information update.
Engineered data quality
In Irion’s DNA, since its founding, there is Data Quality: more than 20 years of experience have enabled it to put into production more than 300 Data Applications at clients in finance, energy, utilities, logistics and manufacturing. Gabriele Seno, Product Evangelism & Advisory Leader, talked about how “The Controls Factory” (download the free white paper written with Renato Valera, Head of Consulting & Solution, here) works in the Irion EDM® platform: an advanced system in which an entire production and management chain for data quality controls can be planned and operationalized.
When it gets to production, a control is by no means at its finish line: it has to be kept alive, it has to be given the ability to fine-tune thresholds, it has to avoid false positives that can only appear in production.
“Engineering controls also means making the Irion engine more dynamic by exploiting metadata,” Seno explains, “thanks to wizards that guide the user and simplify the creation of future controls of the same type. Change management is then automated and delegated to the platform. Data pipelines are duplicable to address similar scenarios in the future, without the need to re-implement each time, because the interface simplifies data and metadata collection.”
This ensures significant scalability: several of Irion’s clients have huge cardinalities (in mathematics, the number of elements in a set) even on a daily basis, and their audits must be ready for the next day’s “batteries.”
Internal audit: managing the business with agile reports
An advanced Data Quality system can become a must for any company that has to put distributed networks under audit. “They become a management tool for the company, thanks to dashboards and KPIs, both for evaluating basic operations (e.g., warehouse management) and for managerial operations (e.g., how are managers working in the investment area, where operations are sensitive). A real gold mine for Internal Audit initiatives,” stresses Roberto Fasano, Principal Advisor Irion specializing in risk management and regulatory reporting, ‘we can work on ’segment reporting’ with an agile and incremental approach focusing on the process, with tangible results in the short term, without necessarily having to produce hundreds of pages of requirements.”
