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In today’s data-driven world, the winners will be the organizations that successfully gain a competitive advantage from their data, and the losers will fall behind.   

Getting to the Business Case 

But knowing this and doing something about it are two different things. Taking action to leverage your data is a multi-step journey, outlined below:

1. First, you have to recognize that sticking to the status quo is not an option. Your data demands, like your data itself, are outpacing your data engineering methods and teams.  Furthermore, your data is more widely distributed across all manners of traditional, big data, Internet of Things (IoT), and cloud repositories than ever before, in effect unraveling your traditional replication-centric data architecture. 
2. Second, you have to decide what approach you want to take. Look to industry analysts like Gartner, Forrester, and IDC for guidance. You’ll discover that they all have identified data virtualization as a must-have addition to your data integration tooling and a critical enabler to a more modern, distributed data architecture. 
3. Third, you need to do more research. You can read the three seminal books on the subject. Then, meet with vendors, such as TIBCO, to investigate their data virtualization offerings. Also, make sure to look at peer companies to see how they’ve used data virtualization. And finally, consult with your favorite system integrator to learn about implementation best practices. 
4. Fourth, you should build an adoption plan that starts with your highest-value, best-fit for data virtualization projects, then expands over time with data virtualization as the core capability used to modernize your data architecture.
5. Fifth, you can start to build your business case that funds the resources required.  

In today’s data-driven world, the winners will be the organizations that successfully gain a competitive advantage from their data, and the losers will fall behind.    Click To Tweet

Building the Business Case

Just as every business is unique, every business case is unique. But there are always two common elements. The first is a set of easy-to-understand value propositions that describe the business and IT benefits, clearly and concisely. This helps build consensus and get everyone on board. The second is a “CFO-ready” financial case that proves tangible value realization, rapid payback, and at least a 5X Return on Investment (ROI), if not more. 

Data Virtualization’s Value Propositions at a Glance 

Data virtualization delivers value to both the business and IT in many ways, including:

• Business-friendly Data Views: Deliver data as business-relevant data views instead of how it is stored in IT schemas. Maintain consistency with business definitions so everyone is on the same page.
• Faster Time-to-data: Take advantage of the latest data from across distributed data sources. Provision new data requests quickly and react rapidly as requirements change.
• Self-service Data Access: Users focus on how to best use data to create business value, while technical teams focus on how to provision and manage it. 
• Reduced IT Costs: Data virtualization requires a fraction of physical warehousing and ETL time, cost, and rigidity. And since it lowers data engineering workloads along with requiring fewer data copies means significant savings. 
• Governance and Security: Enforce access controls across all your data. Comply with regulations including those that require encryption and masking.
• Enterprise Scale: Support diverse data demands driven by multiple lines of business, hundreds of projects, and thousands of users while meeting your most demanding SLAs.

To help with your internal selling, this infographic summarizes these key value points in an easy-to-consume manner. If you require peer company proof points, read this ebook to learn more about how other organizations have realized similar value.

Building your “CFO-ready” Financial Case

Data virtualization presents a compelling financial case. The following drivers make data virtualization a “must-have” for organizations like yours.

• Profit Growth: Data virtualization provides the data your organization requires to increase revenue and reduce costs.
• Risk Reduction: Data virtualization’s up-to-the-minute data helps you manage business risk and reduce compliance penalties. Plus, data virtualization’s rapid development and quick iterations help you reduce your IT project risk.
• Time-to-solution Acceleration: Your data virtualization projects are completed faster so business benefits are derived sooner. Lower project costs are an additional time-to-solution benefit.
• Technology Optimization: Data virtualization improves the utilization of existing server and storage investments. And with less data replication required, hardware and governance savings are substantial.
• Staff Productivity: Data virtualization’s easy-to-use, high-productivity design, and development environments improve your data engineering productivity.

To make it easy for you to build your financial case, TIBCO provides a Data Virtualization Value Realization and ROI tool you can use to capture your key inputs and derive the financial impacts of data virtualization adoption. Contact us today to get started.

To make it easy for you to build your financial case, TIBCO provides a Data Virtualization Value Realization and ROI tool you can use to capture your key inputs and derive the financial impacts of data virtualization adoption. Click To Tweet

The Bottom Line

Data-driven businesses rely on data virtualization to provide the data they need to win in today’s ever-changing business and technical environment. But you cannot take advantage of data virtualization’s benefits without selling the business. This blog sets you up for success. Make it so!