Intelligent CIO North America Issue 01 | Page 82

FINAL WORD How to navigate the rise of data democratization: A guide for IT architects In the face of data complexity, IT architects are responsible for making sure the backend data plumbing is well-conceived, so data teams across the organization can effectively leverage data. François Sergot, Dataiku, offers a guide to IT architects on how to navigate the rise of data democratization. IT architects work with teams across the organization, including data teams, to manage data integration globally – receiving data from and pushing it into multiple sources, connecting sources together, and so on. Although IT architects are not involved in the actual data science projects, their job is to make sure the systems that data teams are using work, as well as to understand the business implications of these resources. These key players (and their greater IT teams) need to have their finger on the pulse of the entire technology stack as it evolves and course-correct whenever necessary. In the face of data complexity, IT architects are responsible for making sure the backend data plumbing is well-conceived, so data teams across the organization can effectively leverage data. Despite challenges associated with data democratization and tasks like data integration and processing, IT architects can ease their own burden by using collaboration-driven data science tools that mitigate risk through more holistic data integration approaches. What does ‘orchestrate data efforts’ really mean? According to a recent survey of 200 IT executives, most companies have more analysts than data scientists, a finding that demonstrates the need for AI to be accessible to a wider population within the enterprise. As businesses take note and swiftly charge into the age of data democratization and race to adopt an Enterprise AI strategy, the number of people working with data inside an organization is skyrocketing. While this accessibility and growing use of data is a positive sign, it indicates a particularly challenging moment for IT teams as they work to keep the pace with this accelerated demand, ensure systems 82 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com