In today's data-driven world, organizations generate vast amounts of data that need to be effectively managed and utilized. Enter the data catalog—a valuable tool that helps enterprises organize, discover, and govern their data assets. But what exactly makes a data catalog so indispensable for modern data governance? Let's explore its significance through five real-world use cases and success stories.
What is a Data Catalog?
A data catalog is a centralized repository that stores metadata—information about data assets within an organization. It provides a user-friendly interface to search, discover, and understand the data’s lineage, quality, and usage. Essentially, it acts as a directory for an organization’s data assets, making it easier for users to find, access, and use data effectively.
Key Benefits of Data Catalogs
Before we dive into the success stories, let's discuss some key benefits of implementing a data catalog in your organization:
Data Discovery and Accessibility: Employees can quickly locate and access the data they need. How often have you found yourself scouring multiple SharePoint pages or consulting colleagues to locate the data you need? Or investing hours in onboarding new team members to familiarize them with the data ecosystem?
Data Governance and Compliance: A data catalog helps maintain the integrity and accuracy of your organization's data by providing a centralized location to track changes, permissions, and usage.
Improving Data Quality and Consistency: Many Data Catalog providers offer Data Quality features to help standardize data across the organization. Imagine how convenient it would be to view the data quality score of a dataset while searching for it. This would streamline your process, eliminating the need to cross-verify it with another dataset
Collaboration: By providing a single source of truth and one stop shop for your company’s data assets, a data catalog encourages collaboration among teams. This promotes better decision-making and reduces silos within the organization.
Cost Savings: A well-implemented data catalog can save organizations significant time and money by reducing the need for repeated data discovery efforts or investing in expensive third-party tools.
Use Cases and Success Stories
1. Eliminating a 6-Hour Data Discovery Tax at Contentful
Success Story:
Contentful adopted a phased rollout to ensure proper user onboarding. Initially, they integrated Atlan with Contentful’s key applications, making critical data searchable and enriched with descriptions. By directing users to Atlan for data queries instead of Slack, they fostered a self-service culture, positioning Atlan as the primary data source.
Automated lineage in Atlan further streamlined impact and root cause analyses, reducing the burden on data engineers. This shift not only saved time but also built trust with stakeholders by preventing data failures.
Contentful's data team is now focusing on enhancing their data catalog and establishing a common language through enriched glossaries. By reducing the time spent on data discovery, they can now focus on strategic tasks. Previously, data consumers spent six hours weekly finding and understanding data. With Atlan, this time has been significantly reduced, boosting productivity.
A critical incident, where financial reporting models failed at 3 a.m., illustrated the benefits of Atlan. Automated lineage quickly identified the failure, allowing the team to resolve the issue before business hours, preventing delays in financial reporting.
Visit Atlan's website to read more.
2. Reduction of report production time by 150 man-hours at Celcom.
Success Story:
Celcom Axiata Berhad, a leading telecommunications provider in Malaysia, leveraged Informatica's AI and machine learning capabilities to enhance its data governance processes and accelerate 5G innovation. The implementation of Informatica Axon Data Governance, along with Informatica Enterprise Data Catalog and Data Engineering Quality, allowed Celcom to build a comprehensive and automated data governance framework.
Prior to this implementation, creating regulatory reports required over 150 man-hours. With Informatica's solutions, this process now takes only a fraction of the time, significantly boosting efficiency. Automated data governance has streamlined data reconciliation and improved data quality, enabling faster decision-making and enhancing compliance with industry regulations.
Additionally, the integration of AI-powered tools has transformed Celcom into a more data-driven organization. This transformation supports their ambitious goals for new digital services and 5G connectivity, improving customer experiences and operational efficiency.
The successful deployment of these tools within six months has positioned Celcom as a more competitive player in the telecommunications market, demonstrating the powerful impact of robust data governance on innovation and business performance.
Visit Informatica's website to read more.
3. Global Brewer Transforms Data Quality
Success Story: One of the world’s largest brewers aimed to enhance data accessibility and quality by 2025, initiating a comprehensive initiative for self-service and automated data quality across its global operations. Facing challenges with a home-built dashboard that couldn't support self-service data quality, the company needed a robust solution to handle its vast and federated system landscape.
After a competitive POC, Ataccama ONE was chosen for its future-proof tech stack, live data quality monitoring, and user-friendly interface. This solution enabled the brewer to deploy reusable and governed rules, solve a backlog of 600 change requests, and establish a single source of truth for data quality.
With Ataccama ONE, local teams now manage data quality independently, supporting projects like supply chain transformation and financial consolidation. The platform also supports advanced analytics by profiling data for suitability. This transformation has led to reliable data quality visibility, widespread adoption across 78 countries, and significant reductions in data duplication.
Ataccama ONE has empowered the brewer to distribute data quality workloads efficiently, ensuring high-quality, live data that drives business value and sustainability.
Visit Ataccama's website to read more.
4. Allegro Transforms Data Management with Alation
Success Story:
In 1999, Allegro.pl began as an online auction site in Poland and has since grown into the largest e-commerce platform of European origin, connecting over 135,000 merchants with more than 22 million monthly visitors. Data analytics has been crucial to Allegro's strategy, helping enhance customer experiences and vendor offerings across its diverse business units.
Facing challenges with data volume and complexity, Allegro embarked on a digital transformation to improve data governance and accessibility. The company transitioned from a centralized architecture to a distributed, domain-driven approach. This shift aimed to simplify data findability and processing, fostering a more data-driven culture.
To achieve this, Allegro implemented Alation Data Catalog. This platform integrated intelligent metadata management with intuitive search tools, becoming the hub for data integration. Alation allowed data users to find, understand, and utilize data efficiently, consolidating information from multiple systems into a single interface. It also facilitated better documentation practices and streamlined data lineage tracking.
The transformation led to significant improvements in data governance, GDPR compliance, and data literacy. Allegro's data catalog now serves as a central reference point, saving users time and reducing repetitive inquiries. The comprehensive documentation and automated metadata updates ensure data consistency and quality.
With Alation, Allegro has not only enhanced data accessibility and understanding but also reduced onboarding time for new employees. This successful integration has positioned Allegro to continue driving innovation and efficiency through robust data management practices.
Visit Alation's website to read more.
5. Engie targets carbon neutrality with data governance strategy
Success Story: Engie, a leading European energy business, is pioneering energy generation and distribution with a strong focus on achieving carbon neutrality. To drive this transformation, Engie leverages Collibra as a cornerstone of its data strategy, ensuring high-quality, accessible data that fuels efficient renewable energy production.
Goal: Breaking Down Data Silos
Thierry Grima, Group Chief Analytics Officer at Engie, emphasizes the importance of integrated data: "Data does not like silos; it wants to mix with other bits of information to create value." Recognizing the necessity of a unified data framework, Engie adopted Collibra to harmonize data from diverse sources, including energy generation, weather, and customer information. This approach is pivotal in optimizing renewable energy production and supporting Engie's mission to accelerate the transition to a carbon-neutral world.
Strategy: Adapting to Global Challenges
In response to the climate crisis, geopolitical events, and the COVID-19 pandemic, Engie restructured its operations from 25 regional divisions to four enterprise-wide units. Centralizing data was critical to this transformation. Collibra, integrated with Engie's AWS-based Common Data Hub, facilitates real-time data usage, enabling agile and resilient operations. "To survive in today’s super-complex environment, you need to capture and use data in real-time," stated Grima.
Solution: Connecting Data Across Divisions
Previously, Engie's data was siloed within separate business units, making strategic decision-making challenging. Collibra's Data Intelligence Platform, encompassing Data Catalog, Data Governance, and Data Lineage modules, has revolutionized data management. Integrated with SAP ERP and soon Salesforce, Collibra supports Engie’s Global Performance Cockpit, providing critical KPIs to executives and enhancing data-driven decision-making.
Results: Driving Better Data Governance
Though still in the rollout phase, Collibra has already demonstrated its value by improving data sharing, standardizing data language, and delivering reliable insights quickly. Grima anticipates significant time and cost savings, highlighting that "Collibra enables the company to create value because we can do more with less effort." The shift from spreadsheets to a centralized data governance platform has streamlined operations, enhancing agility and control over data.
Collibra is key to Engie’s data governance, underpinning its business reorganization and new data management approach. "Collibra is one of those tools that you need to drive better data governance," shared Grima, emphasizing that effective data governance is essential for unlocking the full value of data and achieving Engie's ambitious sustainability goals.
Visit Collibra's website to read more.
Conclusion
Incorporating a data catalog into your organization's data governance strategy is not just a smart move—it's essential. It enables better data discovery, ensures compliance, improves data quality, fosters collaboration, and drives innovation.
Are you ready to take your data governance to the next level? Start leveraging the power of data catalogs and witness the transformation in your organization's data management practices. For more insights how to get started with a data catalog, contact Data Value Solutions Directly and request a free consultation!
Connect with me on LinkedIn Let's discuss how data catalogs can revolutionize your organization's data governance. Feel free to reach out with any questions or comments.
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