Data is growing at a faster rate than anything else inside organisations now and finding a good way to keep on top of its management and future growth is critical to a company’s success. Data has an impact on costs and resource utilisation – because storing data costs a lot of money. It has an impact on compliance management – because keeping exactly the right data and controlling access to data is increasingly regulated. And it has a bearing on corporate reputation – because data breaches are very damaging for PR. As a result, selecting a data partner is a crucial, long-term decision that requires a great deal of attention.
These strategic imperatives mean that many companies have engaged specialists at the highest level to manage their data with CDOs (chief data officers) becoming increasingly common in boardrooms. According to Computer Weekly magazine, over 60% of companies now have a chief data officer – back in 2012 it was only 12%. Yet inspite of investments in expert resources to take care of organisational data management, too many companies are still lagging behind the curve.
Although having a CDO and data management function is a start, what many companies lack is a coherent strategy for organising, governing and maintaining their information assets. That’s where TJC Group can add a lot of value, by providing the expert resources to handle every element of ERP data management.
The Harvard Business Review published an overview of different data strategy elements and this makes a clear case for investment in ‘defensive’ data management. TJC offers a wide range of data management support services, especially within the realm of ‘defensive’ data management concerned with regulatory compliance and cost reduction activities. The defensive position, focused on avoiding the downside of data, remains one of an organisation’s top priorities because they face compliance investigations. But it won’t generate additional revenues or market share, or identify new business opportunities, therefore finding a way to outsource the defensive aspect of data management is becoming a strategic priority.
Selecting a data partner is a long-term decision and will require the involvement of multiple departments in the company. Here are some of the most important considerations when making your decision, to ensure you choose the right provider.
1) Communication skills
Your data management partner needs to be able to work across multiple functions and have the skills to unite multi-disciplinary teams around a common goal – efficient data management. Look at the suitability of your proposed supplier from everyone’s perspective – finance, audit, IT, Tax, compliance functions including GDPR, sustainability and special projects – to consider the fit for your business.
2) Automation functionality
Managing data manually is highly time consuming and error prone, therefore finding a way to automate management using relevant software tools with broad functionality is essential. When evaluating a software supplier, make sure the modules available in their data management software reflect your business requirements. Look for features that allow you to:
- Perform automated SAP Data or GDPR Archiving procedures at regular intervals.
- Extract precise data sets for compliance reporting.
- Manage data storage in a GDPR compliant way.
- Minimise IT involvement, because business users can manage their own data extractions.
- SAP certified solutions that integrate smoothly with SAP solutions.
3) Long term development roadmap
As different countries move towards e-government and digital tax services, new compliance requirements are being introduced all the time. Staying on top of all these changes is time consuming and you need to be confident that whatever tools you are using will continue to meet the latest regulations for data extraction and filing. TJC is always monitoring developments and launching updates to its portfolio of data management software tools to offer the very latest functionality needed. In addition TJC offers a specialist Business to Government (B2G) officer consulting services for a solution designed exactly for your type of business and location.
Watch this video for more information: https://youtu.be/0vulWYAuxhk
4) Compatibility with existing ERP system
TJC are SAP specialists and our portfolio of SAP-certified solutions is designed for international companies who use SAP and need to manage and extract data from often complex, geographically dispersed infrastructures. Using TJC Group software or Cloud Application solutions and consulting services, you can simplify your database architecture and consolidate data into a single archived repository to minimise the costs of hosting and ongoing management.
As experts in data management, TJC Group can help you to implement proven solutions for data and document archiving, data extraction for audit purposes, plus legacy archiving and decommissioning of SAP and non-SAP systems. Combining industry sector and commercial expertise, our experts will ensure your data management complies with the legal and tax obligations in every jurisdiction.
Everything starts with an informed conversation. Get in touch to discover how we can help you.
