How do companies create a business-driven data architecture?

Data is at the heart of all business, and enterprises are realizing the importance of data and trying to build a clean and high-quality data model. The competition in the business world is fierce. And it is all about data and how it is utilized, so a well-planned data model and business-driven data architecture can make all the difference.

The old database architecture is not capable of handling real-time, data-driven solutions. Previously, data architectures were mainly system driven. In this process, requirements were shared by the stakeholders and the data models were built on top of it. These systems are not a stable solution, however, because business requirements change frequently and the models have to go through cyclic changes to meet demands. This introduces latency in the process and the project can suffer a lot.

On the other hand, a business-driven data architecture is a collaborative approach where subject matter experts and data modelers work together and build the data model. It clarifies the business rules from the very beginning and builds a realistic data model.

The following are some of the requirements to create a successful business-driven data architecture:

• Collaboration with the business users: The data model should be built in association with the business users to precisely identify the valuable data and how it works.
• Implement data governance: This is very important for creating a successful data architecture. The ownership, responsibility and tracking of data has to be established from the initial stages. The governance processes only reinforces the entire system.
• Implement master data management (MDM): This ensures a single master copy, which means there is a single copy of data to be used across all systems. MDM is the backbone of database architecture.
• Flexible to changes: Data architecture must be flexible to changes. Because business requirement changes are very frequent, the architecture should be able to cope with this rapid change.
• Support real-time data: Modern data architecture should support real-time data movement. Business data is real time, so the business-driven architecture should be capable of utilizing real-time data movement.

The core of business-driven data architecture is the collaboration between IT and business users. It leads to a successful and real-time data model.