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Pillar · Enterprise Architecture & Transformation

Data, Reporting & Analytics

Figures with a provenance — and master data with an owner.

What is at stake for the CIO

Two reports with two revenue figures cost more trust than a missing dashboard. The question is not which analytics tool is chosen, but which system owns which figure — and how that is demonstrated when it is disputed.

The question behind it

Where do price, stock, customer and master data live authoritatively?

The path through the systems
  1. 1Authoritative system
  2. 2Definition of the figure
  3. 3Data platform
  4. 4Report with provenance

Systems and processes

  • Operational reporting in day-to-day business
  • Management reporting and steering figures
  • Connecting the data platform and data lake
  • Master data architecture and authoritative systems
  • Data ownership across organisational boundaries
  • Traceability of figures back to source

Decisions that go wrong most often

  • The data platform is built before it is clear who defines the figure.
  • Reporting reads operational tables directly and thereby blocks every core change.
  • Master data is maintained in several systems and owned in none.
  • Analytics projects deliver dashboards but no definitions.

Decisions FirstRetail prepares

  1. 1Which system is authoritative for which figure.
  2. 2How figures are defined, versioned and traced back to source.
  3. 3Which analysis stays operational in the core and which belongs on the data platform.
  4. 4Who carries data ownership — in the business, not only in IT.

Where the experience comes from

Master data and reporting architecture from retail and luxury programmes and from the current S/4HANA consolidation. The role is architecture, integration and governance — not the implementation of data lake platforms.

Every name here stands for historical delivery experience from completed programmes. None of them is an endorsement or an indication of a current client relationship. I do not display logos; that would need a permission I do not have.

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