Are you achieving it yet – and is anyone else?

Everyone’s talking about getting value from patient-based costing, but what are NHS Trusts really achieving with this vast body of data?

Compliance is a given, but can it really drive performance improvement or is that just wishful thinking?

Many Trusts are struggling to get beyond the basic data collection, formatting and submission – it’s a massive and ongoing task that can absorb substantial finance team resources. Which is all the more reason for exploiting patient-based costing activities to produce meaningful benefit for patients and healthcare professionals.

Discover 8 ways that NHS trusts are achieving value from their costing outputs in our new white paper on – Patient Level Costing Data

To move away from crunching numbers you need a PLICS approach that focuses on the ‘I’ in the middle – information. That means using reporting tools that are integrally designed to generate insight for the Trust as well as compliant outputs for regulators and government.

We’re working with NHS Trusts around the UK who have uncovered real and important information from their patient costing data. They can:

1. Review analytics in context with a complete overview of the Trust’s patient costs from a single, unified system and approach

2. Combine PLICS data with other Trust performance data for insight into next best actions and performance for key programmes and focus areas

3. Show cost variations for different patient pathways to service managers with clear report formats, so they can close unnecessary gaps

4. Focus on ‘frequent flyer’ patients to redesign more effective services that improve their experiences

5. Integrate all the data for acute, mental health and community services in a newly merged Trust

6. Share meaningful data reports to all stakeholders and service owners so they can identify areas for action

7. Deliver automated quarterly and monthly reporting for performance tracking and continuous improvement

8. Adapt reporting and data to match local requirements, without intervention from the system provider or IT team

If you’d like to find out more about an easier way to turn patient costing data from an admin burden into an opportunity to improve and design health services in your Trust, request your free copy of our new NHS insight paper, Are you getting the most out of your Patient Level Costing data?

It describes how Trusts are using the CACI Synergy PLICS platform and support resources to achieve tangible performance improvements and better patient outcomes from actionable, locally tailored reporting.

How a PLICS user group is helping NHS Finance Teams achieve more

The insights you gain from PLICS can be key to improving patient care and experiences, if you have a strong PLICS solution with leading analytics and your team is empowered to manage and customise it to produce actionable reports.

Trust finance teams in command of a high-performing PLICS process have a position of strong influence and responsibility for sharing information within their Trust that can transform services. They need to be continually alerted to opportunities to use this wealth of data to make informed decisions.

Learning from other teams and Trusts can be invaluable in optimising outcomes from PLICS data and insight. Finance managers who regularly meet and discuss the latest approaches and applications with NHS peers have a head start when it comes to refining and revitalising their Trust’s approaches and sharing their own best practice with others.

Discover 8 ways that NHS trusts are achieving value from their costing outputs in our new white paper on – Patient Level Costing Data

Sharing best practice in an active monthly user group

CACI’s Synergy 4 clients have a unique advantage. They participate in an active monthly User Group for NHS Trusts, run by CACI at no additional charge to participants. The aim is to disseminate best practice and to make sure that Synergy 4 is delivering all the functions and benefits that users and decision makers need in a fast-changing environment.

Synergy 4 experts and users meet every month virtually or in person to discuss how best to drive more value from the PLICS process with Synergy 4. It can be a quick way to resolve the latest challenges and understand how other Trusts are approaching their PLICS obligations.

Head of Customer Engagement Susan Brooks says, “It’s a real win-win, because our Trust clients can share their learning and challenges, helping each other to get the most from the solution. Meanwhile, we’re on hand to answer technical questions and learn as much as we can from users about what they need, so we can continually improve the solution.”

Discovering innovative approaches and resolving challenges

Expectations for Trusts to deliver more value from NHS patient costing analytics are constantly growing. It makes sense to pool resources and expertise in a specialist user group, so Trusts can take back the latest tips and approaches to their teams. With the pace of change in the NHS and with every part of the NHS under pressure, knowledge-sharing and collaboration can make all the difference to delivering more value, more quickly to patients through optimised services.

If you’d like to know more about the User Groups and support that Synergy 4 users enjoy, request your free copy of our new NHS insight paper, Are you getting the most out of your Patient Level Costing data?

It describes how Trust finance teams are using the CACI Synergy 4 PLICS platform and community to optimise the reporting and analysis they provide to decision-makers in their NHS Trust.

Do you have full control of your PLICS solution?

Historically, NHS organisations have prioritised compliance and chosen their Patient Level Information and Costing System (PLICS) based on confidence in compliance and the capability of the solution to deliver the specified data and reports for national analysis.

But as Trusts recognise how resource and time-intensive it can be to provide this mandatary data, there’s a need to think more broadly about what makes for an effective process. And the PLICS system you choose is at the heart of this.

High-maintenance solutions create bottlenecks

Many Trusts find that their solution is high maintenance. If it doesn’t have a user-friendly front-end, IT staff must submit a request to the IT team or the third-party vendor every time they want to make a change or update models or the data structure.

It’s often slow, expensive and difficult to get adaptations actioned by others, particularly if they have other internal priorities. Meanwhile, inconsistent or inaccurate data is compromising the Trust’s ongoing reporting. While the finance team is occupied with negotiations for relatively simple updates, they’re missing opportunities to add real value by focusing on performance improvement insights revealed by analytics.

NHS Trust finance teams want to take matters into their own hands and foster a spirit of innovation and self-sufficiency. If the PLICS system is built around an intuitive user interface, they can dive in and take ownership of every aspect of patient level costing analytics and modelling without relying on anyone else.

Discover 8 ways that NHS trusts are achieving value from their costing outputs in our new white paper

Some Trusts have found a way to foster self-sufficiency

Trust finance teams need a user-friendly system with an intuitive user interface, that’s built to enable adaptation within a secure and compliant framework. That’s the best way to empower the finance team to take full control of data and analytics to produce tailored, relevant reports.

CACI’s Synergy 4 is designed to balance robust compliance and stability with user empowerment. Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust is just one NHS organisation that’s reaping the benefits to deliver improved services and patient care. As their Costing Manager, Clare Jacklin, explains: “We’re reporting on the cost of delivering care to specific types of patients and services and combining that with the ability to dice that by age of patient or type of care that they are receiving. We can fulfil all of these reporting requests a lot quicker than we’ve ever been able to do before, which helps our decision-making process.”

Like to know more about empowering your team to get the most from PLICS? Take a look at our new NHS insight paper: Are you getting the most out of your Patient Level Costing data?

The paper describes how Trust finance teams are using CACI’s Synergy 4 to achieve tangible performance improvements and better patient outcomes through an empowered approach to reporting.

In this 4-part blog series, we look at some of the common reasons data projects fail and the key underlying solutions that can help businesses improve project success rates. Part 1 dealt with outcome misalignment and the problems of a project failing to align with business strategy. Part 2 dealt with estimates and what problems they can cause. Part 3 dealt with project scopes and why they are so important. This time we look at what underpins any successful project, time and resources.

Time and resources – without people, there is no project

As we mentioned in part 3, your estimates will also include estimating the time and resource you’ll need on a data insight project.

Building any project delivery schedule relies on realistic timelines, which can be difficult to produce for projects your team may not have executed before. While elements may be familiar, more and more large projects such as cloud implementations put IT teams on unfamiliar ground, making accurate timelines incredibly hard to estimate (even if everyone is available for your project 100% of the time!).

Reaching out to 3^rd parties that specialise in the kind of project you are undertaking can help you set a realistic project time estimate and schedule, helping you better manage your internal stakeholder’s expectations of time to delivery and not feeling burdened by unforeseen delays.

This can be especially useful on Digital Transformation projects where data is a critical point, as specialist 3^rd parties can support you on understanding the resource requirements based on your data maturity and current BI tools.

It is important to select the right supplier for your organisation. There are three key areas to validate that the 3^rd party are the right fit.

Firstly, a strong technical acumen is important; a common trait amongst 3^rd parties will be their ability to deliver through a competent delivery team who are well skilled in the chosen technology.

Secondly is a clear awareness within your industry. Understanding the subtleties of your industry is vital to being able to create and support effective solutions. There is no one-size-fits-all for data, so it is important that you are able to maintain and enhance your reputation by developing outputs which are focused and relevant.

The third, and most important area, is that the arrangement is a partnership. The best projects are those where collaboration is built into the core of the delivery. Each business has unique nuances that mark it out from the competition. Being involved throughout means these nuances are guarded and the context of the project remains relevant and specific to your business. When considering procuring the services of a 3^rd party, it is important that you are not dictated to, particularly with complex data projects. On conclusion of a project, you want your staff to feel confident to be self-sufficient in the management of the developed solutions, so it is imperative the project looks at developing staff skills as well as delivering high quality outputs.

Alongside this, it goes without saying, people are the key resource on any project – without people, there is no project. Many IT teams report being overstretched, often working on too many projects at the same time, or on projects with too few resources available to meet deadlines.

The initial scoping process should give the chance for an open discussion about which resource is needed and when on a project, as well as how much of their time each project team member (often with a workload outside of the project) will need to spend on the project on a weekly basis.

Defined roles in projects allow for clear differentiation of responsibilities. The previously accepted approach for data insight projects to be delivered was by those within IT. There is more of a need now than ever before that the driver of data projects is the business users who will utilise the output. Ensuring subject matter experts are available to feed into the requirements phase to contextualise complex data constructs and also to provide their feedback within user acceptance testing to prove the validity and usability of the output is essential.

Risk

Underestimate time or manpower on a project and your project might not fail completely, but it’s far more likely to run dramatically past it’s delivery date by weeks, months or in some cases even years. These delays create other bottlenecks around the organisation and can cause a break down in trust between you and stakeholders from not keeping your promises. Avoid this entirely by being realistic with your time estimates and seeking outside insight into requirements where your organisation has a knowledge gap.

Reward

Understanding the current state of play with the moving parts in your project helps you understand what resource you need. With this insight, you’ll be able to meet your deadlines by securing the right people for your project at the right time.

Our customers often reach out to us at the beginning of new data projects for aspects such a current data maturity assessment or infrastructure assessment that supports them in structuring their projects and allocating the right resource. Once into a project, our customers know that as a trusted partner, if they need some extra support from us, they can pull from our bank of services at any time to ensure they deliver and meet their data goals.

Conclusion

Throughout this series, we’ve covered outcomes, scope, estimates and resource planning, and it’s clear that when it comes to big IT projects, there are a number of risk factors that can cause a project to fail, run over-time or over-budget.

When we begin to mitigate these risks by taking the appropriate steps at each stage, projects are more successful and other benefits such as improved stakeholder relationships and employee job satisfaction begin to filter through.

Through planning, detail and communication, projects are infinitely more likely to be successful, however this can be easier said than done for busy IT departments who are usually juggling multiple projects in parallel.

This is why CACI’s Business Insight Group partners with customers and can support them at any point of their data journey, from aligning their outcomes through to post implementation training.

Find out more about our services that help you succeed in Digital Transformation projects.

In this 4-part blog series, we look at some of the common reasons data projects fail and the key underlying solutions that can help businesses improve project success rates. Part 1 dealt with outcome misalignment and the problems of a project failing to align with business strategy. Part 2 dealt with estimates and what problems they can cause. This time we look at why a project scope is so important.

Scope of the project – the devil is in the detail

In order to deliver a solution that everyone understands and is happy with post project completion, a clearly understood project scope is essential. This details what you are and are not going to deliver.

Project teams encounter challenges frequently during projects with additional requirements creeping in that were outside the initial scope. Through the previously mentioned outcome alignment and relevant stakeholder engagement during the scoping process, the risk of unforeseen “new requirements” (that either cause your project to run over time or budget) can be significantly reduced. This is not to say that the project cannot be agile to change but having a laser-focus on the outcomes and scope provides a solid foundation to effectively control such change and manage stakeholder expectations.

This process is often rushed in a bid to see projects kicked off faster, but without a well-defined scope there is a risk the development team may not have the full picture of what needs to be delivered and stakeholders may have mis-aligned expectations as to what is in the plan.

When considering how to scope a data insight project, there are some key considerations that will allow for effective planning:

Inputs

clarity on WHAT information is needed. This element needs to consider whether or not the requirement information currently exists; if it does, where is it? If it does not, how can it be obtained?

Quality: the delivered solutions will only be as accurate as the data feeding them. It is important to understand within the scoping exercise how that data quality can be managed.

Knowledge: there are a large number of people who can manipulate and utilise data. The value in your business is those that can appreciate the CONTEXT of the data. These are key stakeholders who can explain the ‘why?’ and ensure the final output is relevant.

Outputs

some projects will require a single output produced at a particular point in time, others will benefit from outputs delivered at regular intervals to inform the users. The method of delivery to those users is also important – do they have to retrieve the information from a location or will it be delivered to them via email for example.

Audience: it is important to consider two things with the audience – knowledge of the data and the position held in the business. More senior stakeholders will require strategic information to make decisions, service teams will require operational level data to be able to perform their day jobs. It is also important that enough information is provided. Some consumers will have a more intimate knowledge of the data so will not require as much explanation, but others may need additional detail for clarity and confidence in making decisions.

Intended use: If the purpose of the development is to be able to forecast future activity, it is not enough to provide the audience with just the current position; there is a need for historic data to map trends and start to look at how that may be influenced moving forward. Conversely, if the purpose is to performance manage a member of staff, only providing a forecast of potential future performance is not adequate to be able to analyse historic activity.

By aligning your outcomes at the very beginning, this should help inform the scope of the project, as there will already be a level of agreement on what the project needs to help the business achieve.

Risk

Without a full project scope, delivery may not resemble what everybody expected. This could be the result of a 3^rd party not having the full project requirements, or an internal stakeholder expecting something different than what was planned. Mitigate this risk by producing a full and detailed scope of your project.

Reward

Fully detailed project scopes keep everyone on the same page, specifically your project team and internal stakeholders, as well as any 3^rd parties involved in your project. Scoping provides an element of project transparency that ensures you’ll be able to better manage expectations.

Project structure and process, especially in the beginning phases of a project are critical to set the tone for what is to come, which is why our team of experts have developed a project framework with criteria and process at each stage to support delivery of successful projects. Find out more about the Fusion framework here.

In part 4 of this series, we’ll be covering the all-important areas of time, resource and people on your project.

In this 4-part blog series, we look at some of the common reasons data projects fail and the key underlying solutions that can help businesses improve project success rates. Part 1 dealt with outcome misalignment and the problems of a project failing to align with business strategy. This time we look at estimates and what problems they can cause.

Estimates – Balancing the books and the benefits

Almost every organisation would like to deliver more for less in the shortest space of time – after all, who wouldn’t?!

When undertaking any project, you’re going to need to provide estimates on the time it will take, the resource you will need and how much it will cost. This will likely first be highlighted in your business case or business analysis for the project.

Estimates can present challenges for many IT departments, where often the focus is on “how much is it going to cost?” and pressure on how to keep that number as low as possible. While some projects have a relatively low investment, larger enterprise projects will require a significant investment from the business.

This is an area where your business case is absolutely critical for your project to secure the stamp of approval. Many projects are not approved at this stage due to a poorly developed and formulated business case.

The very best project can be delivered but, if the business case was not correctly targeted, the outcome delivered will miss the mark.

There is a need to pivot the conversation within businesses. The conversation should not look at “how much is this going to cost?”. The question should be “how does that add value to what we do?”. The best business case is written from a perspective of the reward far outweighing the risk. Being able to articulate business benefits will automatically shift the narrative from the negative to the positive.

Project cost is relative. Delivering 10 cheap projects that all fail is not good business. Delivering a single project with a greater level of investment that improves the outcomes of customers, whether directly or indirectly, should be far more preferable.

To avoid the possibility of your project not being approved – especially in the case where the size of investment may give stakeholders the need for pause – it’s crucially important to:

• Define the need within the business: current problems or gaps your recommended solution will solve
• Determine the desired outcomes: describe the positive improvements to the business when your solution is implemented

Risk

Without a well-developed business case, your project may not be approved – meaning it’s failed before it’s begun. Lowering costs on your estimates in order to gain sign off may increase project failure risks or mean you need to request further investment halfway through. Overcome this challenge by creating a persuasive business case which shows your stakeholders why the need for this solution is business critical and highlight the valuable outcomes your solution will help them achieve.

Reward

Well developed business cases are not only more likely to be approved, but also facilitate a successful outcome delivery with the most business benefit.

Our team of Business Analysts work with organisations across the UK at the beginning of data journeys to build impactful and persuasive business cases that help secure investment in a solution best fit for purpose. Find out how our team could help you.

Next time, we’ll look at how project scope can impact delivery, benefits realisation and affect managing expectations on your projects.

Reports across every industry tell us that a very high rate of IT projects will fail to deliver on one or more aspect.

On average, only around a third of projects are delivered on time, in scope and without budget overrun. Data Insight initiatives are no different. As data analysis solutions become more and more important to organisations if they want to stay competitive, manage processes and improve operations, the drive for these projects to be successful is on a steep rise.

In this 4-part blog series, we look at some of the common reasons data projects fail and the key underlying solutions that can help businesses improve project success rates.

Reason 1 – Outcome Alignment. What does the future hold?

The first and most important part of any data analytics project is to map out its real purpose and create alignment with the business strategy.

Organisations are often presented with requests for such solutions accompanied by the case “we need to bring our data together to create more value” or “this will solve the data transformation problems we currently have”. However, these reasons don’t address the true benefits that could be realised and this makes return on investment (ROI) measurement very difficult.

You’re about to allocate valuable time, resources and investment into your next solution, so in order to deliver a fit for purpose solution and measure ROI you should always begin at the end. This means mapping out what improves in your organisation once your project is delivered. Alongside this, do these improvements align to your overarching business strategy, goals and objectives?

A common error is to confuse the features and benefits of a solution with the outcomes delivered through implementation or its use.

One such example of this scenario is where businesses believe procuring a model toolset is an outcome. In the world of analytics, standing still is no longer sustainable and businesses must continually evolve with the ever-changing technology landscape. By recognising that the outcome from the analytics project is to maximise the value that can be derived from data assets, the roadmap is set for a solution to be sought. This may involve the use of modern data tools, a strengthening of the data governance or could be a change in the approach to how data is utilised.

The following represents an example of a well-constructed outcome:

• Feature: Embedded analytics in selected solution
• Benefit: Users are able to easily analyse data and generate insight
• Outcome: Company saves 15% in costs from identifying operational inefficiencies

By establishing the desired outcomes before undertaking a project, you can better manage expectations and are more likely to deliver a solution that drives tangible, positive improvements and experiences.

Risk

Without aligning the outcomes of a data project to your business goals and objectives (as well as your IT strategy), you run the risk of failing to deliver tangible improvements. When ROI is evaluated at a later date, if there are no measurable improvements, it can create challenges when seeking approval of future projects.

Reward

Proposing a solution mapped to outcomes that align to your business goals creates a direct correlation between your project and a positive impact. By taking this approach you build better relationships between IT departments and senior stakeholders, as well as ensuring everything you do is continually helping your organisation. This is a virtuous circle, which generates an appetite for continual improvement through the use of data insight.

In order to put data at the heart of a business, it must be used to deliver outcomes that shape, develop and advance the business in all areas.

Our team of experts work with organisations across the UK running workshops with stakeholders to help align solutions with clear business outcomes. Find out more about our data discovery process.

In part 2 of this series, we look at estimates and how to build a well-developed business case to secure investment for your project.

Whether you describe it as currency or an asset, there’s no escaping the value of data to the financial services sector. Its an industry driven more by data than perhaps any other, making the impact of big data on these institutions hard to overestimate.

Banks hold vast amounts of customer data, from purchases and cash withdrawals, to KYC data and the sources are ever increasing when we include things like mobile payments, app data and the IoT (Internet of Things).

With all of these streams of data continuously flowing into the business, an opportunity presents itself to gain insights and act on them. Whether that action is to create an edge over the competition, improve products and services, or improve customer loyalty, each is using data to fuel business growth.

Where we’ve come from and where we’re going

Traditionally banks have held this information in siloed systems, separated by product or purpose, meaning the data could be unstructured and difficult to harvest valuable insight from.

Over the past few years we have seen improvements and investment in data collection and processing, in particular within data warehousing and business intelligence. Institutions have realised that by bringing all of this information into one place they can use it in a more effective way.

With this change, as well as changes to customer behaviours, industry standards and regulatory requirements, a new challenge presents itself: Data Governance.

“Digital Transformation” – once simply the buzzword of the week, has proven to be anything but that. It’s now a priority on the agenda for almost all financial services institutions so they are able to meet customer expectations and compete alongside the small but successful fintech companies.

In order to be successful in Digital Transformation and start to exploit data assets, good data governance is non-negotiable. Businesses want to take advantage of new technologies such as machine learning and AI, which each depend on clean, quality data.

Getting data-governance right has an impact across the whole organisation, from being able to leverage market opportunities at a management level, to finance reports being consistent and accurate, to understand the customer and market to them more effectively, and of course meeting the regulation requirements for compliance and legal teams.

Plain and simple – good data governance makes everything better.

What does successful data governance look like?

In building a data governance strategy, there are four pillars to consider that will go a long way towards a successful program, allowing for better use and management of technologies such as cloud, machine learning and AI.

The four pillars are:

• Collaboration
• Speed
• Data Privacy and Protection
• Scale

Now we know what they are, let’s look at these pillars in slightly more detail.

Collaboration

When it comes to data governance, communication is key, without which no one knows what best practice looks like, what workflows, infrastructure and architecture are in place and no one would understand the goals of the project.

Keeping everything in one place, that single shared resource (if there’s a benefit to your data in one place, take the same approach to your documentation), helps facilitate collaboration across all stakeholders involved in a data governance project.

This will support aspects of your project such as audit trails, processes, guidance and project ownership.

Speed

Any IT professional or project manager will tell you, one critical aspect on any project is momentum. As soon as things start to slow down, you can hear the sighs coming from the projects team as they try to keep everyone moving.

In order to implement a successful data governance program, organisations need to be agile and adaptable, otherwise the project risks losing the efficiency benefit that data governance is there to facilitate.

Making use of AI and automating processes can take a lot of the manual tasks away from your teams’ workload and allow them to focus on more high-value, insight driven efforts.

Data protection and privacy

Cybersecurity is level 1 priority, security breaches are at an all time high and customer demand for control of their data (as well as trust in the organisation that hold it) are all pressing concerns for financial institutions.

Part of successful data governance is being able to protect data wherever it is and easily identify what protection sensitive data should have, so that your safeguards and processes meet the expectations of both customers and regulators.

Scale

We mentioned agile in relation to keeping momentum on projects, and it is applicable here too.

Often organisations will start a small data governance project and scale up as required in order to meet digital transformation goals and roll out the program across the whole enterprise.

Being able to take advantage of modular systems means that when you’re trying to get investment buy from management for data governance projects, you can also start small with the technology you use and grow with demand.

What next?

As data continues to pour into every financial services institution daily, being able to deliver on successful data governance is moving from a desirable “we’ll do it next financial year” to a key priority for businesses.

Customers are increasingly looking for the “best of breed” across all purchases, and banking and finance are no exception. Companies must implement a data governance program that can support them in this changing landscape, or risk getting left in the dust of competitors.

CACI work with institutions across financial services to help build and implement data governance and other data technology solutions. Click here to find out how we could help your business.

Communication Service Providers (CSPs) are well known for having the advantage when it comes to the volume of network and customer data they hold. They aren’t new to handling huge volumes of data and are generally considered to be better at exploiting it than some other industries.

However, when it comes to Big Data projects, CSPs face challenges too.

Here we explore some of the hurdles CSPs may encounter on a Big Data project.

Buy in from the business

Before looking at the technical and project issues, we must start at the beginning, the planning stages which include getting the project signed off and ticking all of the right boxes.

Challenge:

The outcomes and benefits to the business are key when taking on any project, determining the need and key deliverables. Before starting a Big Data project it can be difficult to showcase the potential value without having a few insights and pieces of evidence to support that the insights from the data will add value.

Solution:

Working on a small but strategic basis to start can help to address this challenge and may help when it comes to formulating a stronger business case to showcase to the top management of a CSP in order to help with buy in.

Challenge:

Considering the amount of customer data a CSP holds, there is often a drive to monetise this as much as possible. This creates an issue when it comes to regulation and customer privacy

Solution:

A solid foundation of Data Governance should be implemented. This helps protect customer data wherever it is, as well as mitigating the risk of it being used inappropriately, and ensures the goals of the Big Data project can still be met.

Getting technical

There are 2 fundamental technical challenges CSPs will need to address when undertaking a Big Data project, we address them both below.

Challenge:

As technology advances including use of connected devices, the Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G, the sources from location services, apps, social media and streaming all create previously unthinkable volumes of data from more sources than ever before. The question is how to manage it all.

Solution:

It is crucial for CSPs to be able to consolidate all of these data sources and volumes into a single version of the truth in a format that can facilitate analytics and actionable insights.

Challenge:

Within the CSP data will be stored in different systems, across different departments, processed and stored in different ways, sometimes over such a long period of time it is almost impossible to have a complete view of what data is actually held across the CSP. These data silos create the challenge of being able to share and consolidate all of the data in order to make a success of your Big Data project.

Solution:

The first step towards consolidating your data management systems is to run and audit across the business to identify what processes and systems are contributing to the silos and what data is held where. This information will support effective decision making on how to move forwards.

People, resources and development

One of the common hurdles businesses run into, CSP or not, is the struggle of time and resources. Whether you don’t have the skills to complete a project in house, or the time available vs the complexity of the project itself.

Challenge:

The resource and skills required on a Big Data project are often underestimated. The ability to understand, evaluate and implement the technology is key, alongside the expertise to undertake advanced analytics and the business acumen to turn insight into action. Often CSPs may have one or a few of these skills in house, but could be missing a critical piece of the puzzle.

Solution:

Access to outsourced consultants through your supplier or a partner can often mean fulfilling the missing aspect temporarily or permanently, or working with a supplier to obtain support days for short term projects or training that will upskill your in-house team.

Challenge:

More often than not, achieving all of your Big Data goals requires a number of connected technologies to create a holistic solution. This can lead to an increase in development work, as well as the requirement for skills across multiple systems.

Solution:

Vendor partners of systems you may be using, or consultancies that work across multiple platforms can often connect the dots between the various technologies and tools required. They can pull together a solution specifically designed against the outcomes and deliverables of the Big Data project.

As technology advances and data volumes and sources grow, so does the demand to do great things with Big Data. With this increase in demand comes a need to overcome these challenges, generate data insights and turn them into actions.

Data insight and intelligence will help CSPs keep ahead of their competition and keep their customers happy, as long as they act quickly.

The year of 2020 has brought with it many challenges, not least of which is the need to stay connected. The recent reliance on digital services to keep families, friends and businesses in touch is an added pressure and opportunity for the Telco industry who are already taking on the challenges presented by the Internet of Things (IoT) and the roll out of 5G.

Along with these new challenges and opportunities comes a time for these companies to ensure one thing moves up in the list of priorities: Master Data Management (MDM).

A MDM solution not only brings systems and information together, but creates a single version of the truth. An accurate and trusted, complete view across customers, operations, supply chain, governance and more.

Here we look at some of the key uses and benefits telecoms can get from MDM.

The customer is king

It may seem obvious that we would list the importance of the customer and their data to any telco company, but what is often less obvious is just how complex customer data can get; and that without a full view of the customer, new opportunities can be easily missed and the chances of them jumping ship are substantially increased.

When we start to delve into the sources and various data held by just one customer, it can span across subscriptions, family members, tariffs, bolt-ons, bundles and more. If this information isn’t properly stored and managed, Communications Service Providers (CSPs) can quite easily make big missteps that make the customer immediately think “you don’t know me” – which in the world of tailored online marketing, creates negative brand associates overnight.

While customers might not say it out loud, the expectation is that their CSP has a complete 360-degree view of them, across from their accounts, their relationships, their history with the CSP, interactions (whether that’s by phone, email, in-store or social media) and more. Plus, to really stay on top of future opportunities the CSP also needs to be looking at the customer’s network usage and behaviours. By taking this 360-degree approach the CSP is far more likely to create the right offer at the right time, reduce customer churn and even increase products bought within their existing customer base.

Considering these facts and that it is widely accepted that customer retention and relationship building provides more potential revenue than the acquisition of a new customer, CSPs must prioritise implementation of solutions such as MDM that allow them to better understand and react to their customers and access this potential revenue.

Protecting and producing products

Managing the chain of suppliers and products is not as straightforward as it may sound, especially where CSPs are concerned. Between the contract products of various tariffs, the digital subscriptions such as video and channel content and the hardware of different suppliers, “product” suddenly sounds much bigger.

Across these products, information is stored, managed and presented in different (and sometimes multiple) ways, creating a complicated task, especially if it’s being done manually. This will often be done by various people across the business, working in different departments.

What MDM solves for products is a way to centralise all of this information, turning large volumes of data into a manageable data set that helps a CSP to better manage all of their processes.

Opening up new revenue streams

As some more traditional revenue streams dry out, the pressure is on CSPs to look to other areas of their ecosystem for opportunities and new revenue streams.

One of these opportunities may come from the growth of connected devices and the IoT. As more and more consumers connect their home appliances, CSPs can gain increased data insights from larger volumes of data than ever before.

In addition to this, as we meet the new reality of 5G rollouts, previously unthinkable volumes of data will soon become the norm. This could not only help telecoms improve efficiency, but also open up a new stream of revenue by taking a network slicing approach to enhance network monetisation.

Once telecom’s begin to go down this route the importance of MDM becomes apparent very quickly as the data volumes need to be effectively managed.

The future of MDM for CSPS

To keep the competitive edge and meet customer demands, implementation of a MDM solution is becoming increasingly crucial.

CSPs have historically invested in key systems to support these goals such as CRM, ERP and Network management systems. With those in place a solid MDM solution provides the boost the CSP environment needs to drive improvements, efficiencies and ultimately business growth.

In any competitive market, being proactive can make all the difference. For example, developing new application features that make your processes more efficient can save time and free your team to focus on more challenging tasks.

Change isn’t easy if you’re going it alone. You need the right processes and skills in place from the off. While this isn’t impossible to achieve, it doesn’t happen overnight. Even for the best organisations, it can take time, effort, and significant resources.

There is another way: working with the right partner with the right expertise to help you drive meaningful change.

At CACI, we’ve spent decades helping clients navigate and pre-empt shifting markets. Here are three ways we’ve helped them to be more proactive.

1 – Eliminating Complexity and Manual Data Entry

While it can be tempting to stick with the old ways of doing things, this will almost certainly breed unnecessary complexity and manual processes.

Take a crowded public place for example. One of our clients is required by health and safety law to monitor and record footfall. It’s a critical part of the company’s understanding of congestion at its sites – and how it can make changes to reduce it.

But when the standard method of recording this information was pen and paper, submitted periodically, our client found that its staff were spending so much time filling out paperwork that they struggled to carry out their other daily routines.

Our solution was simple: a digital app that replaced paper forms and allowed staff to upload a variety of supporting documents – removing tedious, manual data entry, and freeing valuable people to focus on other tasks.

2 – Using Technology to Solve Critical Problems

In healthcare, preventative treatment can catch potential issues before they become bigger problems, helping people live healthier lives. What’s more, a healthier population means less pressure on the NHS and more evenly distributed budgets.

University College London Hospitals NHS Foundations Trust (UCLH) identified that without appropriate screening, some of the most vulnerable groups in the UK were at risk of contracting TB – a disease which can be a significant challenge to treat if not discovered in its early stages.

So we worked closely with UCLH to develop its internet tele-radiology information and communication system (ITRICS), which helps to identify, manage, support, and treat patients while they wait (a particular advantage for those without fixed addresses who are hard to track down).

By identifying cases more quickly and with greater accuracy, UCLH is now able to provide effective treatment on the spot. This reduces the pressure on its outreach teams and helping them serve more people when they need it most.

Bringing new applications to market quickly is not just helpful in healthcare. It’s also helped Waitrose & Partners deliver a more seamless customer shopping experience.

We worked together to consolidate the retailer’s multi-device ecosystem – including providing comprehensive ongoing device support – and now it’s easy for Waitrose to develop a wide range of applications for any customer mobile device.

3 – Anticipating Issues to Help Mitigate their Impact

Understanding upcoming changes that could impact your operations – and taking proactive action to mitigate those effects in advance – can help you avoid potential problems and stay ahead of the competition.

In the retail sector, a sudden change to something seemingly straightforward, like the VAT rate, could have huge legal implications, literally overnight. And we helped Waitrose & Partners to prepare for exactly this.

Changing product prices to reflect a tax change sounds simple in theory, but the reality is hundreds of thousands of products that each need updating at once – with no room for error.

That’s where batch processing comes in. By making these price changes in sensibly sized batches (usually overnight to limit point-of-sale disruption), our client avoided painful database errors that could have risked non-compliance and customer dissatisfaction.

We also helped Waitrose & Partners to prepare for the food import challenges posed by Brexit. By using stock smoothing techniques where the locations of the most buying were analysed and supplied accordingly, the retailer has been able to reduce the impact of perishable food disruption – and it now uses the same technique to deal with adverse weather events that threaten suppliers both at home and abroad.

Proactive Changes, Countless Benefits

Often, change is out of our control. But what we can do is be proactive about how we prepare for it – so we’re ready when it happens.

What’s more, being proactive can also help you be more innovative and responsive to your customers’ needs – opening critical revenue-generating opportunities for you.

If you haven’t already, read the first entry in this blog series – How three major organisations used challenges to drive digital change.

In the age of big data and self-service analytics, data catalogs have become the standard for metadata management, helping analysts and other users find the information they need and get the visibility required for good data governance. But what is a data catalog, how do you know if your business needs one and crucially – how do you go about implementing a successful data catalog?

What is data catalog?

A data catalog is a collection of metadata, combined with data management and search tools. It maintains an inventory of data assets through the discovery, description and organisation of datasets. Through providing context to the relevant user (be that an analyst, data scientist or any other key stakeholder), they are able to find and understand datasets in order to extract business value.

A good data catalog should act as a single version of the truth through unification of all sources of metadata which can be disseminated to the right people at the right time, with the right permissions in place – making it both collaborative, compliant and secure. When implemented correctly, a data catalog will provide you with a clear understanding of your datasets in order to unlock the value you in your data and improve business intelligence and insight.

How do I know if my business needs a data catalog?

If your business is getting serious about a data-driven strategy, you’re going to need a data catalog.

The drive to implement a data-driven strategy is usually born from a company’s desire to transform the way they do business through use of data analysis and interpretation to make more effective and informed decisions.

The natural first stage of this strategy is to identify, combine and manage multiple sources of data. It’s not unusual for a company’s data to be siloed across multiple systems and sources such as data warehouses, data lakes, legacy systems and cloud-based repositories. Bringing these sources together into a single version of the truth helps solve both the challenge to the user of seeing the full picture, as well as the data governance issue that fragmented data presents.

If you’re looking for your users to gain effective and meaningful insights from the data held across your organisation, an optimal way to achieve this is by using a data catalog.

A data catalog can help organisations who are struggling with manually identifying data assets that deliver value as well as improving data efficiency, creating more context around your data and reducing the risk of errors in your data.

But by far the biggest benefit we see in companies with a data catalog is the impact on self-service analytics. With a continued increase in the number of stakeholders across an organisation that use analytics to support their activities and decision making, it becomes critical for data to be transparent and accurate, as well as accessible at the point of need, without the admin required to simply find and understand the data.

Through use of a data catalog, business and data analysts can search and find the data immediately, with access to all of the relevant datasets, helping them to evaluate and make informed choices. Quality of analysis is then improved by users spending sufficient time on the analysis over the admin of data preparation.

Our experience

Through CACI’s work with one of the world’s leading global financial services organisations, our team have deployed an enterprise data catalog that allows full visibility of all streams of data. This has supported improvement of data quality, as well as ensuring GDPR compliance.

By being able to see the full lineage of the data – where it has come from, where it is going and who will have visibility to what datasets, this institution is empowered to implement a level of data governance that can only truly be achieved through cataloguing to the most granular detail.

Any changes to the data are immediately highlighted so that appropriate action can be taken, or it can be used for future insight.

If you are looking for a data catalog, but aren’t sure on where to get started, why not speak to one of our team who can guide you through the steps of the process.

One thing that has come under the spotlight in the UK during the Covid pandemic has been ensuring fair access to education for all children. The school environment is often a hugely positive one for many children, offering structure as well as education and, in some cases, meals.

Impact Mentoring was founded by Wayne Cockram to mentor and support children who were struggling with their education and circumstances, inside and outside of schools. “By providing one-to-one mentoring, which so many children need, it develops a trusting, supportive relationship and helps to raise aspirations. Once a young person knows what they want to be, they better understand the importance of education and see school as an important part of their journey, ultimately improving their outcomes,” he explains.

“School is such an important welfare support system for kids. Impact Mentoring is largely funded by the schools, to help us go in and work their students, but when the school holidays come around, that funding stops. To address this gap, we set up the charitable arm of Impact Mentoring, Ignite Life, enabling us to further help kids who simply become isolated during the holidays. We realised that we needed to stop this from happening as a lot of good work was being undone during the school holidays.”

The charity has covered some impressive ground, delivering tangible benefits to young people who needed them most. “We realised that three hours of mentoring wasn’t enough for some of these kids, they needed specialist support,” explains Wayne. “Trauma in early life is a key factor in why some children find learning almost impossible. Specialist therapeutic help such as counselling can repair these issues, but often the wait can be 18 months or more. Going private isn’t an option to most families either, as the costs can be out of reach.”

Ignite Life has provided counselling sessions for young people that are free to schools, parents and the local authority, with an eight-day turnaround from referral, giving these young people the help they need, when they need it.

With the onset of Covid and the subsequent lockdowns and closures of schools, Wayne and his team identified another area of need. “The food vouchers are a great idea in theory, if you can get to the supermarket, do your shopping and get it all home,” he says. “My colleague Tom Gould decided that he would reach out to the some of families around us to see if they needed help with getting food. A lot of families have, for example, children with disabilities, and it makes getting to the shops, doing your shopping and then getting home incredibly difficult under normal circumstances.

“So, Tom started helping out with a few families. We thought, initially, that we might have 20-25 families to support in this way, but we now have over 150. We’re helping to feed over 500 people in our community each week.”

Another challenge posed to these families, and particularly the children, is accessing education during Covid. Many do not have access to the internet, so continuing their education away from the school environment is nigh on impossible.

“We’ve set up an environment here at Impact Mentoring where these kids can come and use our laptops and access the internet,” explains Wayne. “We always have a team of our mentors onsite to help them. This is helpful in many ways; it enables them to continue their educational journey, it gets them out of the house and into a safe space and we can offer them help with their homework and school tasks. Many come from families where such access and support are impossible. We’ve set up a really vibrant, aspirational environment for them here, somewhere where they actively want to come and spend time.”

Impact Mentoring also assists some of the children by giving them laptops that they can take home with them. “This enables us to deliver mobile sessions to some of the children, particularly those who can’t come to our site to use them,” adds Wayne. “This helps to increase the capacity of our services and help more children.”

You can find our more about Impact Mentoring and the important work it does here. And learn more about Ignite Life here. CACI is proud to be supporting Impact Mentoring by donating laptops to the centre.

LET’S TALK ABOUT THE REAL REASONS WHY ORGANISATIONS ARE MOVING TO THE CLOUD

Behind the hype, it’s solid business evidence that has convinced a critical mass of businesses of all shapes and sizes to make the leap to a cloud computing environment.

CACI Director Miguel Cardoso has worked with many of them over the past decade. He shares what’s really driven their decisions and the impact of cloud on their performance and prospects.

Security, modernisation, data governance, efficiency and cost reduction are some of the headlines that cloud computing providers use time and again to promote the adoption of platforms, applications, and services in the cloud. They’re great soundbytes, but what do they really mean for real world organisations who want to maintain their performance and drive further growth?

Cyber-security is a key reason that organisations I work with are adopting cloud – it’s a specific aspect of data security that’s becoming an ever-greater concern across all industries. The growing incidence and increasingly sophisticated nature of cyberattacks compel companies to invest in technologies and solutions that preserve one of their most important assets – data. Not all companies have teams with specialised resources in cybersecurity, so cloud computing emerges as the leading option to strengthen security and data protection.

The cyber-security resilience of a cloud computing environment come from the managed security services that leading providers offer. This means organisations without large IT and security teams can take advantage of the latest, sophisticated protective technology, and of focused, expertise that would be unaffordable internally. The cloud provider is responsible for managing and mitigating security issues, bearing the investment costs of the necessary technology and human resources as part of their core proposition. This alone is a strong reason to move to the cloud: organisations can offer their customers a vital and reassuring security message underwritten by the cloud provider.

Innovation and agility are frequently cited as cloud advantages. It’s common sense that every organisation wants these capabilities in an increasingly competitive and demanding market. So how does cloud computing help? The modern data platform it provides means that businesses can adopt the latest solutions and applications that support their business operations – from finance management and CRM to campaign delivery and customer analytics.

Cloud computing is inherently designed to connect data and systems, ensuring faster response times, greater accuracy and more informative reporting. All of these improve everyday operational performance and business management. It’s quicker, easier and more cost-effective to expand capacity, upgrade apps and add new functions, so you’re always working with the best technology tools for your business. Businesses that have moved to the cloud find they can adapt to market demands more quickly, keeping pace with customer needs while controlling profit and performance metrics.

Data storage is another key advantage that cloud adopters find compelling. The cloud has become the place of choice for data storage: when companies migrate their applications to cloud platforms they want to capitalise on the innovative applications and advanced analytics that are available. To make it happen, they need fast and systematic data organisation and accessibility. Creating a connected and complete picture of business-wise performance and customer data is much easier in the cloud. As well as enabling trusted management reporting and business governance based on current data, it supports more effective prospecting and forecasting using advanced predictive modelling tools. Cloud-based systems make these affordable and easy to use for all sizes of organisation.

Cost and efficiency come in a strong fourth place – an interesting development, since in the early days of cloud, they were its leading marketing messages. These days it’s taken for granted that cloud computing will be cheaper to run than the equivalent technological and human resources on-site. But even more important for most companies is the value they gain from more agile and modern systems, solutions and services as part of an overall digital transformation. Recent cloud adopters see significant benefits from the way cloud-optimised systems speed up and automate their processes, reducing the amount of manual rekeying and intervention. This frees up admin time so staff can focus on revenue generation and often creates extra capacity in the business to fuel growth.

These success stories are compelling. But is moving to the cloud synonymous with success? Not necessarily. Working with cloud adopters, I have observed that there are three key dependencies for organisations who achieve all the hoped-for advantages.

1. Initial discovery and direction: you need to make an exhaustive survey of your company’s needs and define strategic goals
2. The choice of solution: your cloud provider understand your priorities and critical success factors so they can be sure they’re providing exactly what your individual business needs
3. Careful planning and project management: you must be thorough and rigorous, including all stakeholder and examining the impacts of change at every stage, from the selection of solutions and suppliers to the migration project and ongoing use

New clients frequently tell me that the cloud is “more complex than we expected”. Often, this is because of poor collaboration with previous suppliers. With our long experience, my team can provide an antidote. When we work on cloud transformation and migration projects we focus on:

• Designing the right approach for the individual client company, with a strong and transparency connection to the desired commercial result
• Using relevant specialist and industry skills to address core business issues for the company
• Selecting and deploying the appropriate tools so they are easy to use, secure and viable in the long term to support an agile business that embraces the need to adjust and adapt in today’s demanding markets

If you’d like to talk to use about realising tangible benefits from moving your business to the cloud, please get in touch.