The Experimental Enterprise: Building a Data-Driven Business (SVDS Video Series

Over 90 Minutes of Video Instruction

Description
Being data-driven is a hot phrase, but what does it mean in practice? As the tide of digitization rises, every industry sector is poised to be transformed: digital manufacture such as 3D printing has commoditized prototyping and product development; mobile apps have put every business in direct contact with their customers; and the Internet of Things promises the ability to manipulate processes and environment. The result of this digitization is an unprecedented flood of data.

The ability to make decisions based on this data, and to use it to experiment rapidly, has become an imperative for today’s companies who wish to play a part in tomorrow’s market. An "experimental enterprise" is a company whose infrastructure is designed to make experimentation possible and efficient. It is not about finding analytical fairy dust that you can sprinkle to make everything better, but rather a deep-rooted approach to operations, innovation, and competition.

Although digitization is unquestionably an issue for the entire company, it places a laser focus on the IT organization. In a digitized marketplace, IT must transform from being "faster paper" to one in which it underpins strategic advantage. This is not an incremental change, but a radical reassessment. Within IT, there are six critical building blocks that can be used to build an experimental enterprise: the cloud, devops, and open source; agile development and platforms; and data science. This video introduces each of these building blocks in turn, and explains how the audience can use them in their own organizations to adapt and thrive under challenging and rapidly changing market conditions.

About the Presenters

John Akred, CTO
With over 15 years in advanced analytical applications and architecture, John is dedicated to helping organizations become more data-driven. He combines deep expertise in analytics and data science with business acumen and dynamic engineering leadership.

Sanjay Mathur, CEO
Passionate about driving business forward with emerging technology, Sanjay has built his career on innovating with data and analytics. With broad experience in industry, Sanjay has had customer-facing roles leading global teams in product development, R&D, management consulting and sales.

Edd Wilder-James, VP Technology Strategy
Founder of the pioneering data conference, O’Reilly Strata, Edd is a respected voice in the worlds of data, open source and the web. Bringing together deep technical know-how with market understanding, Edd makes sense of information technology and its trajectory.

• An integrated understanding of how new technology can enable business strategy, create new products, and drive revenue.
• A better appreciation for the advantages that open source technologies can offer.
• An understanding that new tools and platforms are not isolated, but rather, when used together, can be leveraged to create huge competitive advantages.