Mastering information

FST catches up with Adam Prentis, MD and Founder of Evaxyx, to find out where the data management market is going.

FST. OK, first question – what does Evaxyx mean?
AP. We’ve had to answer that one a few times over the years. We set up the firm during the dotcom era and you just couldn’t register a domain name for love nor money. Even if you did there was no hope of getting found on the search engines. So we created a name that was unique and could be found – that’s it. Oh, and before you ask its pronounced Evaksys or Evaksix – either will do just fine.

FST. Evaxyx have been providing consulting services to the financial sector for eight years. How have data management issues changed?
AP. You’ve got to bear in mind that the organisations we work with have millions of customers, numerous customer, product and entity data stores in multi-site environments, and multiple client touch points. They have undergone radical business transformation through Y2K and dotcom, have had to ask severe questions of their data through new legislation like Basel II, anti-money laundering etc. There has also been significant M&A activity, and then there’s the small matter of terabytes of data on systems that can be decades old.

Quite rightly there is an expectation amongst consumers that they will be made an offer for a product on demand, that they will be offered complimentary or alternative products and services and that their personal information is secure. They also expect that statements and invoices are correct and that the institution’s share price won’t be damaged by compliance failings etc. There has never been a greater need for more timely, accurate data to service and enhance the customer experience.

Issues that haven’t changed are the needs of business for a single version of the truth, a single view of the customer, and so on. Complexity and the volumes of data are more significant but the means, architectures and supporting processes to address increasing real time information requirements either analytically or operationally have moved on massively.

As you would expect data governance, operational efficiency and enhancing customer value are three of the most common current data management issues.

FST. The external forces driving the FS market have changed dramatically over this time. Which have had the greatest impact?
AP. The role of the internet and mobile telephony are clearly significant and will continue to drive change, but my belief is that compliance, specifically Basel II, has had the greatest impact. It has made data, data quality and ongoing data governance a main board subject.

FST. Evaxyx is a niche player in a marketplace full of massive integrators. How do you see your role in helping large organisations?
AP. We are specialist and agile; we understand our subject and are consequently highly focused. We have core competency in big and complex data and data governance, plus we have proven methods and standards and we employ acknowledged experts in their field. This means we have great value add. Our role spans advisory/strategy, architecture as well as implementation.

In most cases we work directly for the end user but we have also engaged with integrators where we can help them to deliver solutions in areas where they have less or low expertise.

Our objective is to provide consultants that integrate quickly with a client’s IT organisation, deliver rapid change and pass on specialist knowledge.

FST. Offshore resources have become far more prevalent in large projects. Have you seen any sign of changes in the way IT programmes are run?
AP. Of course and there will be more significant change in the future as some of these firms refine their business models in the mainstream consultancy space both organically and through acquisition. We aren’t there yet, but by 2012 there will be a big shake up in the global consulting market. All firms, including ourselves, need to continually assess what value they are adding and be able to adapt. We are market specialists and in that regard I believe there will always be a role for high quality expertise.

FST. Predicting the future is always difficult, but what challenges do you see affecting the FS sector over the next 12 months?
AP. One view is that M&A will drive further significant consolidation across the sector. Another is that the state of the US sub-prime market should be of great concern to the UK sector.

The agility of a FS organisation to take best advantage of its information assets is crucial whenever a market shifts.

FST. Fulfilling a niche role relies on seeing the next wave of technology before the mainstream. Which technologies are you focusing on?
AP. Evaxyx has always worked in areas of significant data complexity and generally in b2c organisations. Consequently our focus is on solutions that complement our service offerings. We have been working in the emerging master data management and customer data integration space for two years developing methods, standards and procedures as well as training consultants in specific technologies. From mid 2006 we have been engaged with early European adopters of CDI-MDM in the retail banking, investment banking, pharmaceutical, media/telecom and insurance markets.

FST. Data governance is always referred to whenever large-scale data integration is mentioned. What practical governance issues has Evaxyx faced when implementing its solutions?
AP. A common problem for complex data systems is in data stewardship. By that, I mean that stewardship is the manual process of correcting suspect data, either as a project goes live or as part of planned remediation activities. The knowledge of how to do this is buried deep within the organisation and visibility of the rules needs to be exposed at a much higher level. It is these embedded rules that will reveal the data governance strategies. Basel II continues to expose major areas of weakness in this area; for example in validating the accuracy and quality of significant streams of data moving from silos into real-time warehousing. Having a strategic data governance and diagnosis process is fundamental at this juncture yet it something we come across time and time again.

We work with a number of organisations that have purchased data quality technology but have found that they have not realised the expected business value. Our role is to help them deliver that value by identifying business impact and to implement a Data Governance process to realise those benefits. This may include a continual audit and monitoring of the ongoing data quality performance.

FST. Many of your clients are in the financial services sector. Which of the issues that you have encountered in FS have the greatest relevance to other sectors?
AP. Security and threat remain the number one issue to CIOs in Financial Services whether this is malicious or fraudulent. Deploying an appropriate data governance process is a key aspect that carries cross industry relevance.

We also see IT Infrastructure as a limiting factor in speed to market and cost of ownership. This has relevance to any consumer-focused organisation.