There comes a time in every company’s lifecycle when data – and a lot of it – needs to be migrated from Point A to Point B. Whether it’s due to security concerns, a system upgrade or a physical company move, such a migration presents a unique opportunity, if handled properly.
Think for a moment about all the “junk” you have in your data system that you don’t really need to keep moving from place to place; old emails, files of former employees, outdated information and more can all serve to drag your system down. That’s what prompted Mick Collins, VP Global Pre-Sales at BackOffice Associates, to post a blog recently championing the idea of treating such a move as a business process instead of a simple migration.
“If the goal is to achieve some operational efficiency, improve performance, or realize some capabilities not achievable in the old system, then the data migration project must be treated as a business process, not a technical exercise,” Collins wrote. “A technical exercise will simply move your data from the old system, apply some minimal transformation, and load it to the new system. We like to refer to this as a bug for bug copy’. Every issue from the old system is now resident in your new system, including duplicate customers, materials, products, and vendors, incorrect payment terms, wrong or missing tax information, incorrect banking details, and more. The data migration is the best time to clean all of your data and filter out any old data you’re not going to use again.”
Collins makes a good point. If you’re going to be tackle such an undertaking, why not do it once and do it right?
“Migration projects treated as a business process will naturally lead to an earlier realization of value in the target system, thus speeding the ROI,” Collins noted. “Having the business work with the data throughout the engagement, including defining the data rules and definitions, and testing with real data, will identify gaps in the data and in the target design before the cut-over event.”
Collins lists three specific points to consider when migrating data: Business Relevance, Business Readiness, and Target (News - Alert) Readiness, noting that “the combination of all three … will intuitively produce a better result.” To see his full thoughts on the matter, click HERE.