#184 Data platforms: the foundation of business-oriented data analytics with Aruna Kolluru, Chief Technologist, AI at Dell Technologies

In this episode, Felipe sat down with Aruna Kolluru, Chief Technologist for AI at Dell Technologies ahead of our Advancing AI Melbourne event on 6-7 April. She shared how they work on providing solutions for their customers and use all available technologies - AI, IoT, data, etc, - to reach their desired outcomes.

Aruna works with clients across a vast range of industries and this is a testament to the power data & AI hold to promote growth and generate business value, regardless of the area you work in. In her own words, data has become the core of innovation for every industry.

With the key role data plays in today’s organisations, making it accessible for the analytics team to extract insights from it is of the utmost importance. That’s why data platforms have become essential for providing reliable, quality data that can be leveraged to achieve business goals.

Some common challenges Aruna has identified are most data and analytics projects are viewed as technical initiatives without any alignment to the business objectives, and the difficulty business users have in finding and using data that exists in a variety of different formats and locations without having a catalogue or a way to really see all the data they have. She fears some business leaders may view data platforms as just another technology improvement project, when in fact they can be the foundation that ensures data and analytics are set up to support their business goals and produce meaningful insights from all the available data. Once organisations have set up a data strategy that deals with the lineage of the data, its quality and the whole governance around it, it’s easier for the data scientists to analyse it.

Other important factors that can help level up your analytics efforts and the impact they have, according to Aruna, are investing in the right analytical tools and fostering a culture of constant learning within your company that encourages employees to improve their skill sets and keep up with the industry’s rapid pace of advancement.

Aruna also shared some of the basic steps to follow when it comes to end-to-end delivery:

Identify the right use cases.

A tip she offers is using examples from your peers of what they're doing or taking inspiration from other industries. You can also pick your most pressing challenges and assess how AI can be leveraged to solve them, but doing AI just because it's ‘the coolest technology’ is never the way to go.

    2. Recognise gaps in capabilities and prioritise what you want to achieve.

Think about the feasibility of the solutions and assess if you have the necessary data and capabilities.

    3. Do a proof of concept.

This will bring out any challenges that may arise in real projects and help you prepare to avoid/ overcome them.

    4. Strive to work within a scalable and adaptable infrastructure.

Technology will change, the way we analyse data and algorithms will change, so think of how you can avoid problems like data migration in the future, by choosing a platform that can scale and adapt with your needs.

Tune in for the full conversation with Aruna on how to leverage data platforms.

Thanks to our sponsor Talent Insights Group!

Read the full podcast summary here.

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/datafuturology/message