Michael Noel, Accenture & Akhtar Saeed, SGWC  | AWS Executive Summit 2018
Channel: SiliconANGLE theCUBE
Date: 2019-01-08

Michael Noel, Managing Director, Applied Intelligence, Accenture & Akhtar Saeed, VP, Solution Delivery, Southern Glazer's Wine and Spirits & sit down with Rebecca Knight t the AWS Executive Summit at AWS re:Invent.

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https://siliconangle.com/2019/01/09/integrated-data-platform-gets-fractured-enterprise-on-same-page-reinvent/

Integrated data platform gets fractured enterprise on same page

We’re constantly told that we need massive data sets to do quality analytics; the more data sources, the merrier. But when there are a gazillion silos full of mismatched, mysterious data, where do companies begin combining it? How do they parse it, analyze it, and decide what to keep and what to throw out?

They start with a “clean room,” according to Michael Noel (pictured, left), managing director of applied intelligence at Accenture LLP.

“Having this concept of a clean room that allows you to take your various aspects of a business and combine it from a data point of view, a business metrics point of view, and a business process point of view — this one source helps you consolidate and streamline that so you can see that integrated view across your new business model,” he said.

The foundation for a clean room is a single platform for all usable data.

Noel and Akhtar Saeed (pictured, right), vice president of solution delivery at Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits LLC, spoke with Rebecca Knight (@knightrm), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the AWS Executive Summit in Las Vegas. They discussed the companies’ partnership and the steps to organizing messy data on one platform. (* Disclosure below.)

Cultural and tech hurtles to landing on one page
Combining multiple data sources for analytics and business intelligence is tough within the same company. When two companies merge, marrying two alien data collections together is an even more difficult challenge. Southern Wine & Spirits of America and Glazer’s Inc. began working with Accenture to prepare for their merger in 2016. The now-merged company, Southern Glazer’s, has taken the crucial first step and gathered all its data together with services from Accenture Insight’s platform running on Amazon Web Services Inc.

“That’s the hardest part,” Saeed said. “Data is going to be very important, so you have to take the first step saying, ‘How do I get a better handle on the data?'”

There are 6,000 users on the platform now. Culturally, change management was one of the hardest hurtles to overcome, according to Saeed. On the tech side, finding the right storage solution required some trial and error. Intelligently directing long and short queries helped with managing capacity.

“The breakthrough came when we said, ‘We need to really reevaluate how are we doing our workload management,'” he added.

Companies looking to organize data on one platform should keep a larger goal in mind while taking smaller, manageable steps toward achieving it, according to Saeed. “Make sure you look at the smaller things that you can measure, you can deliver against,” he concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the AWS Executive Summit. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the AWS Executive Summit event. Neither Accenture LLP, the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)