Making Enterprise Architecture actionable through intelligent data visualizations

Using Power Platform to align Operational and EA teams for a successful Digital Transformation Program

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Industry:

Finance

Technology stack:

Microsoft Power Platform
Microsoft Azure

About

We partnered with a global banking and asset management group operating in the UK, Europe, Southern Africa, and Asia-Pacific. Our mission was to streamline their digital transformation efforts, challenged by complex business processes and scattered data.

Challenge

The client struggled with using their current data systems effectively for their digital transformation. Their vast and evolving operations lacked clear data visibility, posing a risk to their transformation goals. To address this, they aimed to create a unified digital platform through an Enterprise Architecture program and a targeted pilot project to test solutions in critical business areas.

This platform would unify their dispersed data sources. An accelerated pilot program involving selected operations teams was agreed upon to gauge the difficulty by addressing critical business needs first.

Solution

The Divectors team decided to begin by enhancing collaboration between the operational and IT teams. This was achieved through a series of workshops and interviews involving business stakeholders, subject matter experts, and IT representatives.

Preparation: Divectors used in-house Enterprise Architecture expertise to create a lightweight, custom meta-model. This model was designed to govern the alignment between business and IT, based on the results of the kick-off interviews and workshops. Additionally, we proposed a standardized method to organize business processes. This would aid our customer in ensuring alignment between various operational teams and Enterprise Architecture.

Implementation: This step involved translating business requirements, the EA meta-model, and existing business reports into a cohesive set of modern dashboards. Using Direct SQL queries, REST API, and PowerQuery, the Divectors team quickly constructed a data architecture that met the pilot's needs. Cutting age technologies were established to align with company best practices - streaming data, RLS, incremental and historical data refresh and way more.

For visualizations, the combination of Power BI and Deneb surfaced critical information about existing business processes, necessary business information, and supporting applications. The operational team's documentation was managed by Paginated Reports, which utilized Power Automate for updates and notifications.

Results

By utilizing our knowledge in Enterprise Architecture, Data Architecture, and Visualization, we navigated through the customer's organization to create a solution for both business and IT leaders. The pilot project proved the value of a unified data platform, showing both business and IT leaders how it could solve their operational challenges. This success laid the groundwork for accelerating the client's digital transformation across the board.

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