Ongaro Stephen

Introduction The challenge for any organisation or business manager is to deliver meaningful results. The health, longevity, worth of any organisation can be under pinned by many things but if it’s not delivering the expected outcome [depending on your org these vary- profits, returns on investment, reputation, compliance, social etc.] then natural competitive pressures will sooner or later take control. Delivering the right organisational results requires an understanding on what and when it’s needed, and at the highest level. It’s about developing a shared focus on what are the Rights Things to be done and when they should be delivered. Cascading these into teams and focusing them on what the org needs (alignment) is where meaningful productivity is delivered. We see many worthwhile investments that focus on personal or workgroup productivity. These can deliver positive incremental improvements to the output of a person or team. But unless these individual achievements aggregate to the organisations’, then we would argue that these investments in productivity are false, wasted, flawed. Surviving and flourishing in an age of globalisation and disruption is challenging. This eBook is intended to act as a thought primer; a help guide to assist managers and entrepreneurs rethink investments in productivity. Without doing some extensive MBA course we want to create some simple tools & ideas that will help you leverage classical systems thinking, risk assessments that in turn develop clarity on what is ‘business critical in the digital age’ and how IT solutions can be used as a backbone to new levels of performance. If you are a senior manager with multiple teams or departments, a department head or an IT manager guiding and mentoring business teams, we think this eBook will help you. We would like you to use this eBook as a working tool. It’s being designed so you can list out your objectives, systems, risks and control, key measures and ultimately the key IT solutions needed to address your particular business needs. Contents Introduction1 Systems, Business Systems and System Thinking4 So what exactly is a system?4 Understanding a Business System4 The Concept of System Thinking5 What does Organisation and Business design have in common with Systems?8 Organisational Design, Business Design and Systems8 Risk Assessments – Which Systems are Business Critical?10 What is a Risk?10 Risk Assessment10 Critical Business Systems10 Identifying the Business Critical Systems in your Organisation11 Ensuring the Reliability of Business Critical Systems13 Focus, alignment and productivity in the digital age14 The Difference between Urgent and Important14 Using the Eisenhower Decision Matrix to decide what’s important15 Quadrant 1: Urgent and Important Tasks16 Quadrant 2: Not Urgent but Important Tasks16 Quadrant 3: Urgent but not Important Tasks17 Quadrant 4: Not Urgent and Not Important Tasks17 System design – definition, objectives and outcomes, leading and lagging measures19 Leading and Lagging Measures19 What are Leading Indicators?20 What are Lagging Indicators?20 IT systems – data sources, security, rules, outcomes and insights24 Securing your IT Systems24 Security Measures that you can implement24 The anatomy of a Business Critical solution26 Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery26 Stable and Secure IT Networks27 Data Security27 Business Analysis, Software Support & Development27 Virtualisation27 Design patterns - data viewing, unification and processes29 So what are Design Patterns?29 The Data Unification Problem30 The Solution30 Streamlining your Data Unification and Processes31 Chapter 9 Design patterns - Digital Workhubs & Workplaces33 Systems, Business Systems and System Thinking For any significant task to be carried out, a system has to be in place. So what exactly is a system? In a simple explanation, we can say that a system is a methodological procedure or simply a process that is designed to achieve a specific goal. Quoting W. Edwards Deming, “If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing." A system is made of up component parts and steps that work together in order to realise the desired results. From that, you can deduce that each single part of a system is, therefore, a crucial part of the success of the whole project since it carries out a separate task from the next. Managing the whole system to make sure that every component part plays its role is therefore a crucial factor in any system. Moving to the business side, we can effectively say that a business is made of systems. We can even say that the whole organisation is a system in itself! Understanding a Business System A business system can be termed as a combination of people and automated applications that are integrated to work together to meet a given set of business objectives. A business system is designed to take place with or without the presence of the founder, and accomplish tasks over and over again as efficiently as possible. An example of a business system is checking and sending out client invoices, as well as receiving payments and following up on outstanding bills. The weight of a certain business system depends on the type of activities that take place, and how the specific desired goal affects the general output of the entire business. Regardless of the size of your business, it is likely that you have a business system in place. However, it is important to note that the effectiveness of your business systems is crucial to the success of an organisation. This is because business systems are the essential building blocks of your company. Every single facet of your business is critical to the overall functionality of your business structure and can be managed or improved by applying the correct principles. An effective business system will be the only way that you can manage all the important details included in the whole business process. One of the major concepts designed to ensure that your business systems are effective is System Thinking The Concept of System Thinking As humans living in a complex world with complex systems, we normally use nonlinear thinking to try and understand how things work. However, if we want to improve our complex systems, we have to have a new mindset that will help expand our understanding of work, co-workers and processes. This new mindset is System thinking. System thinking is a management discipline that concerns an understanding of a system by examining the linkages and interactions between the components that comprise the entirety of that defined system. It is a way of thinking about, and a language for describing and understanding the forces and interrelationships that shape the behaviour of systems. Thus, it is both a perspective and a language. It employs habits, tools and concepts to come up with an understanding of the independent structures of dynamic systems. The main concept behind this idea is that when an individual has a better understanding of a system, then they can identify leverage points that can be used to improve the system such that it can produce the desired outcomes. The approach of systems thinking can be termed as fundamentally different from that of traditional forms of analysis. This is because traditional analysis focuses on the individual pieces of what is being studied. System thinking, on the other hand, is a more holistic approach to analysis in that it focuses on the way that a system's constituent parts interact with other constituents of the system in which it is a part. This means that instead of isolating the smaller parts of the system, system thinking takes into account all these components are a crucial constituent of the whole process. Because of its efficient approach, Systems thinking has proven valuable in areas where we have; Complex problems that need to be looked at from a larger perspective and not individual parts Recurring problems whose past attempts to fix them has only made them worse. Situations where an action affects or is affected by the environment surrounding it. Problems whose solutions are not obvious. It can be used in any area of research and has been applied to the study of medical, environmental, political, economic, human resources, and educational systems, among many others. What does Organisation and Business design have in common with Systems? Is your Organisation/ Business well designed? How do you know? How is it different from a poorly designed one? How does it relate to systems? Organisational design shapes every process and person in your business, and it actually is one of the key factors for ensuring the overall competency of the business. It involves aligning an organisation’s structure with its mission. In other words, it analyses the complex relationships between people, tasks, workflow and responsibilities to make sure that they all support the objectives of the business. When the organisation design in your business if effective, it will create an environment where people can work effectively. It will boost different areas of the business like communications, productivity and innovation. Organisational Design, Business Design and Systems From the above, you can note one of the key factors that we talked about in systems; interrelation. Organisational design, just like a system, understands that all component parts need to integrate efficiently to realise the set objectives. If one part does not function in sync with the others in a system, then this will result in the overall inefficiency of the system. This is the same in organisational and business design. When an organisation is poorly designed, many productivity and performance issues can be traced back to it. Though the mission may be great, the people may be excellent and the leadership top-notch, if an organisation is poorly designed it will still not perform well. Let’s take an example of a mid-sized company that wants to grow its customer base by 30% in 6 months. Yet, the company’s sales team is rewarded for customer retention instead. Will the company still achieve its goal? What is the probability of doing so? Why will this goal not be met? Because of poor organisational design! How tasks are carried out, business processes organised, information shared and people incentivised, all have a direct effect on the performance of an organisation. And just like in systems, they are all important facets which are crucial for the wholesome success. It is therefore important to understand the different business systems in your organisation and determine whether each is in line to achieve the set objectives. Task: Take a list of your most important business process, and the goals that they are meant to achieve. Beside each of them, identify the methods used to make sure that the said business process achieves the set objective. Can you find any process that needs some re-organisation to improve productivity? If so, highlight it and set out measures to make in line with your business targets. Risk Assessments – Which Systems are Business Critical? Risks are always there, in almost all situations of life. They become even greater in the business side of things. Every investment is a risk, and almost every decision in the business is a risk. What is a Risk? We can delineate a risk as any potential harm that may arise from a current process’ vulnerability, or from some future event. While some risks can be anticipated, prevented or their threats minimised, there are others that happen without an indication, and therefore risk assessment is a crucial factor in your business. Risk Assessment This is the process of identifying any hazards that can happen and have a negative impact on the organisation’s ability to conduct business. Such an assessment identifies these risks and then provides measures, processes and controls that should be used to prevent or minimise their impact to business operations. Since business is made up of different systems, one of the biggest risks is the failure of a critical business system. Critical Business Systems As the name suggests, a business critical system is a system that is important for the wholesome functionality of the business (to keep the business running). A failure in a business critical system can go a long way to harming the organisation financially, legally, client-wise or in any other damages or penalties. This failure can be triggered by any risk factor in the system. This is any factor in the system (whether it be a component, equipment, process, procedure, personnel, software etc.) that is essential to making the system accomplish its tasks. A disruption of this factor can then cause a catastrophe in any organisation. It is therefore important to identify all the crucial business systems in your company. Identifying the Business Critical Systems in your Organisation Having seen that some systems in an organisation are more weight than other, identifying critical business functions in your organisation is integral in resuming operations following a disaster. It will ensure the ability to protect the organisation's assets, meet organisational needs, and satisfy regulations by recovering quickly incase disaster strikes. You, therefore, must be able to know which functions are important for your organisation to keep running. You should at least have a list of 3 or 4 business critical functions arranged regarding priority. The following steps should help you identify these functions. However, keep in mind that this process will work in close conjunction with the risk assessment analysis we have seen above. First; Determine the Objective/ goal that this function supports. Determine the frequency of the function Determine the number of Departments that perform the particular function Answer the following Questions For its successful completion, does this function depend on other functions? Are there other functions that depend on the successful completion of this particular one? Can failure of this function lead to losses in revenue? Are there potential fines, litigation other forms of punishments of noncompliance due to a required regulatory requirement? Is noncompliance tied to a specific downtime for this function? Does this function directly impact the business’ image or market share? What priority ranking would you give this function as compared to other functions? The best way to answer these questions is to think through your business processes, and then meeting with some key employees who will then help document they key business functions. Once essential business functions have been identified, rank them in order of importance from High, Medium to Low. You can then list them in the table below Business Process Description Impact (Severe, Moderate, Low) MTD (Max Tolerable Time) TOR (Estimated Time of Recovery) Ensuring the Reliability of Business Critical Systems Since a failure in such systems can have a big impact on the business, trusted methods and techniques must be employed in the development of a system. These systems are usually developed using tried and tested techniques rather than newer techniques that have not yet been subjected to extensive practical experience. Such conservativeness is usually very important because older techniques have their strengths and weaknesses understood, and therefore any potential threats can be alleviated. Newer techniques, on the other hand, can promise better, but their long-term problems are not yet known. This calls for you to rely on a system provider who has been in the market for many years, as they have seen and witnessed all that there is. Focus, alignment and productivity in the digital age In the business world, you have to focus on the most important things to streamline your business processes, and as a result, improve productivity. This is one of the easiest methods that can help you both as person and entrepreneur/ manager, to stay efficient. There are two important things that you have to align if at all you stand a chance of making your systems efficient, and business a success overall. These are the urgent and important tasks. The Difference between Urgent and Important An urgent task is one that requires immediate attention. It is a task that you have to ‘Do Now.’ These tasks have a deadline or a set duration within which they are supposed to be handled, and not responding to them within that time may have an impact in the business. An example is answering a client’s call or replying to their email. Important tasks, on the other hand, are the ones that contribute to our long-term mission, values and goals. They are typically not urgent, but they can sometimes be. They normally require us to remain calm, then handle them rationally and effectively. An example of an important task that is not urgent is a presentation you’d like to make for promotion purposes. It may somehow look straightforward, but this is not usually the case in the business environment. People tend to blur the lines between important and urgent tasks, with most of us falling into the trap of believing that all urgent tasks are important. This is especially for people who work in a fast-paced or stressful environment. Doing so leads to decreased productivity since all focus and resources are directed towards the wrong tasks. One of the biggest problems in the daily operations of the most busineses is that important tasks usually get trumped by urgent tasks. This leaves a challenge for each one of us. So if you have a limited amount of time, how do you make that you still set time aside for your important tasks? Using the Eisenhower Decision Matrix to decide what’s important The Eisenhower Decision Matrix was developed by Dwight Eisenhower, a five-star general in the US Army, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe during World War II, President of Columbia University, and a two-term United States President. Stephen Covey popularised it in his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The matrix consists of a square that is divided into four quadrants. These are; 1. Urgent/Important 2. Important / Not Urgent 3. Urgent/Not Important 4. Not Urgent / Not Important Let us go into detail about each of the four quadrants and explain which one we should spend the most of our time in if we wish to be our best and make the best out of our businesses. Quadrant 1: Urgent and Important Tasks Being both urgent and important, these tasks require our immediate attention, and they are also crucial to the long-term goals of the business. Examples of such tasks are; A new business proposal Tax deadline An email concerning business, which requires immediate reaction. Tasks in this quadrant have to be taken with seriousness as failure to will have a big impact on the business. However, if well planned, they can be made more efficient or eliminated outright. For example, you don’t have to wait until the last minute to do your taxes. Doing them late will only turn the task to ‘urgent’ when it could have been sorted out a week earlier. While we can never completely do away with urgent and important tasks, we can always reduce them significantly with a bit of proactivity. Quadrant 2: Not Urgent but Important Tasks The tasks that lie in this quadrant are the ones that don’t have a pressing deadline, but they are key to achieving the goals of your organisation. They are typically centred on planning for the future, strengthening relationships, and improving your business systems. Examples of such tasks are; Weekly planning Long-term planning Improving the competitiveness of your employees Creating a budget Covey suggests that we should seek to spend most of our time on Q2 activities, as they are the ones that provide us with lasting happiness, fulfilment, and success. However, since they are not urgent, we sometimes tend to push them forward and concentrate on urgent tasks, which are sometimes not even important. You should not wait for your schedule to clear up so that you can handle these tasks, as that won’t happen. You have to say, that “I will make time for these tasks, no matter what.” Quadrant 3: Urgent but not Important Tasks Quadrant 3 activities are the ones that require our immediate attention, but they are not crucial to helping us achieve the goals of our businesses. Most of these are interruptions from other people and often involve helping them meet their own goals and priorities. They include; Phone calls Text Messages Some emails that aren’t crucial to the business Request by a former employee to write a letter of recommendation for them. Covey states that many people usually spend most of their time on Q3 activities. This is because these tasks are urgent, and most people tend to handle activities in order of urgency rather than importance. Since they often involve helping other people, one may think that they are important. Fact is, they aren’t important to you. While you can’t really avoid them, they need to be balanced with your Q2 activities. Otherwise, you will start suffering from “Nice Guy Syndrome”, which is never a recipe for success! Quadrant 4: Not Urgent and Not Important Tasks Activities that lie here neither require our immediate attention nor help us achieve our long-term goals. Primarily, these can be termed as mere distractions. They include; Scrolling through social media Mindlessly surfing the web Playing video games These tasks do not help us improve our productivity, but still, some of us end up spending so much time on them. Later on, we realise how that time would have helped us achieve better things. However, these activities are still helpful to some extent and therefore should not be eliminated completely. They can help us relax and decompress our minds, especially after a hectic day. What you should do is limit the time allocated to them, and never let them eat into the time for important activities. Seek to always spend more time on what is important. You should apply this decision matrix system in your business every day, as well as your personal life. When faced with a decision, stop and ask yourself, “I’m I doing this because it’s important or am I doing it because it’s merely urgent?” This is because making the right decisions is always a step closer to your goals. Are you familiar with “[X] is really important, but I don’t have time for it right now”? Well, whenever you do that, you are always trading what is important, for what is urgent. Lao Tzu says, “Time is a created thing. To say ‘I don’t have time’ is like saying, ‘I don’t want to.’ Or as Picasso put it, “Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.” System design – definition, objectives and outcomes, leading and lagging measures One of the most important phases of system development is the system design. System design is carried out in order to make sure that the system satisfies the specific needs and requirements of the business or organisation, a fete that can only be achieved by a coherent and well-running system. In definitive terms, we can say that system design is establishing the elements of a system such as the architecture, modules and components, the different interfaces of those components and the data that goes through the system, to make it function as required. The design process can therefore be termed as the bridge between requirements specification, and the final solution that satisfies the requirements. Its general goal is to produce a blueprint of the required system, which will then later be used to build the final system. This design is carried out in two levels. The first level focuses on the modules needed for the system and the specifications of these modules as well as how they will be interconnected to function as one. The second level focuses on the internal design of the specific modules, and majors on how the specifications of these modules can be met. To ensure that these elements of a system continue to function as required, some measures must be taken into account. These are the leading and lagging measures. Leading and Lagging Measures For any system to continue operating at its maximum and continually produce the expected results, it has to be measured. The way the measurements are done is very important, as this process provides the basis for continuous improvement. Effectively doing so compounds the success of your improvement efforts. To accomplish this, you will need to use a combination of both lagging and leading indicators of performance. What are Leading Indicators? Leading indicators are predictive measurements that are key to influencing the future. For example, more sales calls or more marketing campaigns could be a leading indicator for increased sales in the future. They can be termed as a precursor to the direction something is going. However, they are just predictive of what could happen in the future, and not a guarantee. These indicators are typically input oriented, hard to measure and easy to influence. The fact that they are input oriented means that they frequently require some investment to implement an initiative that is geared towards achieving better success in an organisation. What are Lagging Indicators? Lagging indicators are used to measure a company’s current state based on results, outputs and outcomes. Since they are based on facts, they are usually accurate. For example, if we want to know the number of sales that have been made this month, we simply count them. They will give us a real sense of direction to where the company is heading. Lag indicators are important for charting progress, but unlike leading indicators, they are useless when it comes to influencing the future. The Significance of leading and lagging indicators Leading and lagging measures are crucial factors in the performance of your business systems, and the business in general. Though ensuring that you have the right leading indicators may prove a challenge, it is important for the efficiency of your systems and success of your business. They are business drivers and identifying specific, focused leading indicators should always be a part of your business’ strategic planning. Lagging indicators on the other hand are crucial in the evaluation of your business processes. Just about anything that you want to keep in check will have lagging measures. These can be the returns on investments, budget variances, performance of employees etc. What has been evident over time is that a good combination of the right leading and lagging measures enhances the overall business performance in any organisation. For instance, “satisfied and motivated employees” is a well proven lead Indicator of “customer satisfaction”. In the same way, “High-performing processes” is a good lead indicator for “cost efficiency.” It is always great practice to find a good combination of leading and lagging measures in your company, and you will improve the performance of your business functions, and increase success. Task: Identify some of the most important leading and lagging measures in your business. Based on the lagging measures, has the company been performing to expectations? How can the identified leading measures be used to improve productivity in the future? IT systems – data sources, security, rules, outcomes and insights Technology has been advancing over the years, and now almost every business is made up of various IT systems. An IT System can be defined as computer-based system that is useful for providing information necessary for the execution of various business processes. In an IT system, a network of components works towards a single objective. If there is lack of coordination among components, it leads to counterproductive results. An example of an IT system that is used by every company is the email system. This system is made up of; The Mail Server Company PCs running the email client A Connection Network One basic operation of an IT system is data processing. This is where data is fed into the system, processed by the system, and given back as processed information. Securing your IT Systems Given the important role that these systems play in an organisation, they have to be protected. You should ensure that in your company, security measures have been established and that they apply to anyone who access, uses or controls any company computers and data resources. Security Measures that you can implement The following sections describe some basic system security measures that you can implement in your company. Design Safe Systems Any good systems should be designed with security in mind. Before implementing a system, ensure that it has working security measures within itself, in order to reduce chances of exposure to hackers and thieves. Protect with Passwords This may look like a no-brainer, but securing your systems with passwords is one of the best ways of protecting the data contained therein. It is an authentication procedure that cuts out unauthorised users from accessing data that they are not supposed to. Keep in mind to establish secure passwords that can’t be easily cracked. A strong password contains, number, letters and symbols. It is not based on common words or standard dictionary terms. Implement a Firewall When implemented, a firewall will act as a barrier between your organisation’s trusted network, and an untrusted network. It controls all the incoming traffic and outgoing network traffic and therefore protects your systems from the outside world. Use a Virus Scanner, and keep all software up-to-date It doesn’t matter where you are working from, but all computer systems need to have an efficient virus scanner. Viruses are one of the ways through which an organisation is targeted by malicious people who can then obtain data illegally, or hold out information for ransom. Always scan attachments before opening them. Further, keep all your software at par with the latest security updates. The anatomy of a Business Critical solution In today’s world, you’ll agree with me that business critical operations are only as effective as the underlying IT infrastructure. The elements of your IT infrastructure encompass a wide variety of technologies such as servers, storage devices, SANs, networks, and operating systems. The reliability of this infrastructure is key to the efficiency of the whole organisation. Since business critical systems are like a pillar in your organisation, you simply can’t just let them be. All these critical systems must be organised in such a way that any threats or risks are alleviated, and business critical solutions are put in place to ensure a quick recovery, in case disaster strikes. However, some traditional isolated deployment models for business critical applications have left many businesses with complex solution architectures, underutilised systems, and high operating costs. If your business can’t tolerate downtime without a significant business impact, then you need to have a comprehensive support solution designed by experts. Such will help you improve availability and performance across your IT infrastructure. An effective business critical solution will comprise of different measures. Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery If your IT systems suddenly come to a standstill, you’ll most likely find out that operations won’t be business as usual. Acquiring a complete business critical solution is supposed to make sure that your business has an adequate contingency and Disaster Recovery plan. Such a plan makes sure that in case of a system failure, you will be sure to get back up running as soon as possible. If you implement such a plan, always engage your experts to review them and test the implementation of these processes. This will ensure that your business critical operations can operate under any circumstances and handle any eventualities. Stable and Secure IT Networks IT Networks are the nerve centre of most businesses today, as they are crucial to providing communication, collaboration and data and resource sharing. Whether localised, span multiple sites, wireless or rely on physical cables, you need to have a stable and well-performing network that is well organised and easy to troubleshoot. All necessary security measures should also be implemented to prevent any attacks from malicious people. Data Security With the advancement in technology, data and cyber threats have been on the rise. Protecting your business information, data and property is, therefore, more crucial than ever. A number of security plans should be drafted in different departments of your business to protect data and information from the dynamic threats that exist today. Business Analysis, Software Support & Development Technology is the centrepiece of almost any business, and its core to delivering products and services to customers. Since it’s a business critical system, you need an expert to evaluate how the system facilitates your current business processes. By automating these processes, you will be able to improve the efficiency and save costs. Improving your core business processes based on reliable systems like SharePoint will help you gain that competitive age, and in overall improve the stability of all your processes. Virtualisation Another business critical solution is virtualisation. Almost all business critical functions in your organisation can be virtualised and replicated in a number of separate locations or migrated to new hardware. This measure reduces the overall costs in case of a system failure while at the same time improving the resilience if your systems by providing an extra layer of flexibility. This will help you easily and effectively respond to any challenges that arise to disrupt operations. All the above comprise an effective business critical solution and can be implemented in any business. However, the solutions implemented in your business always depend on the business systems operating there. What we do as professionals is to first evaluate your business processes, discuss the possible solutions with you, and then help you decide and implement the most effective business critical solutions. Design patterns - data viewing, unification and processes Systems are never straightforward to develop. They actually are among the most complex constructions, with some even featuring millions and millions of lines of code. Luckily, computer scientists over the years have come up with several methods that are meant to help with the construction of complex systems. These are called design patterns. So what are Design Patterns? A design pattern is not something tangible that you can pluck off a store shelf. Neither is it a piece of reusable code or library that you can just integrate to your software and come up with a system. A design pattern is more of a way of thinking about a problem in hand and trying to come up with a plan to solve it. It’s more of a description or template that can be used in many different situations to solve a problem. Some problems tend to occur time and again in a given context. It is in this situations that a design pattern plays a crucial role by providing a generalised approach to solving the issue. The core solution can be used every time that this problem occurs, though the implementation will vary because we don’t have an exact solution. For example, let’s take a case where we are building a system’s user interface. Now, we need to connect the presentation layer with the business processing and data. This is quite challenging, but it is not a new problem. Thousands of such problems have been solved for decades. There is actually a design pattern that helps separate the presentation form the data model. This is the ModelView Controller (Fowler, Model View Controller, 2002). It originates from the world of Smalltalk in the 70s and has been used in a way over and over again to help solve this kind of problem. This pattern can be implemented. A business faces many challenges during the daily operations. The key is knowing how to go forward about solving each problem that arises. Since systems always revolve around data, it is a good practice to have a system ready for handling such risks. The Data Unification Problem With the high-level systems being adopted to improve customer service and operational efficiency in organisations, data and information applications are being utilized more and more. While each of these applications can work on their own to solve a specific problem, the approach presents a huge problem when it comes to effectively managing these high volumes of internal and external data. Without a well-thought-out data unification plan, (an applied design pattern) your enterprise cannot build a solid foundation for long-term strategy without risking reduced alignment between IT and line-of-business objectives. This poses new operational and analytical risks that include; Missed business opportunities Reduced operational performance Lack of new insights Inability to meet customer needs Low flexibility and reaction time to business changes Fragmented business processes Unresolved data quality issues Reactive and expensive IT implementations The Solution Traditionally, companies have tried to solve this data problem using custom hand coding and/or data warehouses. While such approaches can work, they consume a lot of time, take a considerable amount of ongoing maintenance, and are quite fragile. These high costs often offset much of the benefits of data unification. However, we professionals now offer a solution to data problems using holistic, modern and technological approaches. What these solutions offer is the ability to bring together a composite solution that aggregates the many point solutions. Streamlining your Data Unification and Processes With data processes being a crucial part of the business, you need to work hand in hand with a company that offers these solution to have your processes running effectively. You will get assisted to; Identify business use cases: Align with the company to identify the use cases most relevant to your business and determine what datasets, both internal and external, are required. Simplify with a single solution: Avoid farming out disparate management processes to multiple solutions which can increase complexity and cost. Build in flexibility: Decouple data loading from transformation and storage to enable a simpler, true and more flexible form of extract-load-transform (ELT), also known as just-in-time transformation Allow for quick integration of new data: Create multiple touch points across IT and line-of-business users where new and disparate data can be integrated irrespective of job role With data processing being a core activity for every computer system, your streamlined data unification process will go a long way into improving the productivity of your systems. Chapter 9 Design patterns - Digital Workhubs & Workplaces