The Data Operating Environment at BMT serves as the operational foundation for data governance, accessibility, security, and delivery, aligned with our strategic goals. This environment brings together the technology, people, and processes needed to transform raw data into actionable insights, supporting the business with scalable, consistent data services.
Purpose of the Data Operating Environment
The purpose of the Data Operating Environment is to ensure BMT has a unified, reliable, and secure data infrastructure that enhances data accessibility and governance, reduces operational costs, and supports agile decision-making. This environment is designed to centralise data management, empower data-driven decision-making, and provide the tools necessary for consistent and compliant data practices.
Structure of the Data Operating Environment
The environment is structured into layered capabilities that build upon each other, creating a streamlined workflow from data ingestion to consumption. This layered model aligns with our medallion architecture:
- Bronze Layer: Raw data ingestion and storage, capturing data in its native form.
- Silver Layer: Cleansed and structured data, aligned with BMT’s common data model for easier analysis.
- Gold Layer: Enriched data marts, providing specific, pre-aggregated views tailored for different business functions.
- Platinum Layer: Advanced analytics and machine learning, facilitating predictive and prescriptive insights.
This structure simplifies data management, enabling faster, more consistent access to data across the organisation and reducing the need for siloed data handling.
Key Challenges Addressed by the Data Operating Environment
- Tech-Centric Focus: The environment is not solely a technical implementation but a cross-functional strategy that enhances the BMT business model. By focusing on aligning technology with business goals, we ensure data solutions directly support customer experience, operational efficiency, and innovation.
- Departmental Data Silos: Data silos are mitigated through centralised data access in the cloud-based environment, allowing departments to draw from a unified source. This centralisation reduces redundancies, ensures data consistency, and promotes collaboration across BMT.
- Data Quality Assurance: To support high-quality data, the environment employs automated data validation and cleansing processes in the Silver layer. This ensures data used across the organisation meets consistent standards, reducing errors and enhancing reliability in reporting and analytics.
- Complex Data Landscape: The environment accounts for BMT’s diverse data landscape, incorporating multiple data sources, ETL processes, and a common data model. This holistic view integrates all data sources within BMT, enabling a seamless data pipeline that aligns with operational and strategic needs.
Benefits of the Data Operating Environment
The Data Operating Environment offers BMT strategic advantages in several key areas:
- Enhanced Data Governance: Ensures data integrity, privacy, and compliance across all business units.
- Accelerated Speed to Insight: Reduces time to access and utilise data, enabling quicker and more reliable insights.
- Streamlined Data Accessibility: Empowers employees across departments with centralised, democratised data access.
- Improved Operational Efficiency: Reduces the burden of managing disparate data sources and manual processing.
- Reduced Environmental Impact: Cloud-based infrastructure and targeted data acquisition processes lower resource consumption and environmental footprint.