Is the data middle office the place to analyze data?

For enterprises seeking digital transformation, how do you manage your company's data resources to generate value and effectively serve your front-end business? In 2019, the most popular answer is undoubtedly the "data middle office".

What is a data center?

(A) Frontend, middle and backend

Frontend, that is, the front-end platform composed of various frontend systems. Each front-end system is a user contact, that is, the enterprise's end users directly use or interact with the system, is the intersection of the enterprise and the end user.

Backend, that is, the back-end platform composed of back-end systems. Each back-end system generally manages a class of core resources (data computing), such as financial systems, product systems, customer management systems, warehouse logistics management systems, etc., such systems constitute the backend of the enterprise.

The front-end and back-end are like two gears with different speeds. The front-end responds quickly to the needs of front-end users and focuses on rapid innovation and iteration, so the faster the speed, the better; while the back-end is relatively stable due to the back-end resources, and the system is old and complex, and is even subject to laws and regulations and other compliance constraints, so it is often the highest level of stability, and the more stable, the better, and the slower the speed is natural. The slower the better.

With the continuous development of the enterprise business, this kind of "front and back office" gear rate "matching imbalance" problem gradually appeared. And the center is like in the front and back to add a set of "gears" between the front and back to match the rate of the foreground and background, is the bridge between the foreground and background, it is born for the foreground, easy to use the foreground, will be the background of the smooth flow of resources to the user, respond to the user.

(2) The origin of "data center"

"Data center" is not a technical term, but simply refers to the data technology that collects, calculates, and analyzes massive amounts of data. It is a platform that collects, calculates, stores, and processes massive amounts of data through data technology and unifies standards and calibers for the purpose of managing and applying the data assets of an enterprise. The data center unifies the data to form standard data and then stores it to form the big data asset layer, which in turn provides efficient services for customers.

The concept of "data center" was first proposed by Alibaba in 2015. Alibaba believes that the data center is a combination of methodology, tools, and organization that is "fast", "accurate", "comprehensive", "unified", and "comprehensive". ", "accurate", "full", "unified", "through" intelligent big data system. Ali people through years of unremitting efforts, under the continuous catalytic nourishment of the business, their technical and business capabilities precipitated a set of comprehensive capabilities platform, with a fast response capability for the front business changes and innovation.

Zhong Hua, chief architect of Alibaba Middleware and author of "Alibaba's Middle Office Strategic Ideas and Architecture Practices", said that in the process of using Ali technology to promote the digital transformation of enterprises and establish a digital middle office, the first major challenge is business, followed by technology. The so-called business challenge is from the business point of view, the *** sexual business module precipitation to *** enjoy the business platform, personalized business divested to form the front office, the formation of "big platform, small front office" of the new pattern.

The core experience of Alibaba's development of a digital center is that the original ****health IT department must find a very strong Internet business as a handhold, to turn itself into a core business sector, to be able to truly transform into an enterprise ****health business division, rather than some kind of deformation, soup for soup, but not for the ****health IT department, which is what Ali ****health business division said The concept of "business nourishment".

Two, why should enterprises layout data center?

The core value of the data center is to help companies unify the planning, management, and integration of fragmented business data to form a value realization channel that meets the characteristics of the enterprise -- that is, the enterprise's "digital assets". In this process, the main issues targeted by the data center are to improve the enterprise's data governance capabilities, provide data management tools, and enhance the efficiency of data utilization.

For traditional enterprises, in order to build up the competence center, it is not enough to make an end, and it is necessary to connect these ends. A "special forces" is useless, what it really needs is to build up its artillery and radar capabilities. The ultimate goal of the data center is to make "all business data, all data business", to bring all the data together to the data center, to open up the data flow of each line of business, data links, to understand the current state of enterprise data.

When providing data services for data applications, it reduces the repeated development of data platforms and the repeated storage of data, thus reducing enterprise costs. At the same time, the establishment of a unified data storage, data use model center, competence center, the data of related business areas to do convergence, to solve the demand for data interconnection and interoperability, to achieve the value of data on the one plus one is greater than two.

Taking Alibaba as an example, its data middle platform system consists of three core segments: diversified data collection and access, public **** data center, and unified data service, which has successfully achieved business dataization and data businessization in the new retail, finance, logistics, marketing, tourism, health, big entertainment, social, and other Alibaba business ecosystems, and empowered the business frontend and the cloud in both directions.

Alibaba's open data platform, in 2018, has helped Haidilao's Yunshanglao APP members soared, the smarter is the application is able to accurately draw a picture of each user, remember each user's tastes and preferences, and then realize personalized, customized "thousands of pots and pans" service. Public data shows that as of now, the registered members of Yunshanglao have reached 45 million people, an increase of 50% compared to 2018. In addition, there are CCTV, ASUS, RT-Mart and others who have already enjoyed the services of Ali's data center.

Alipay under Ali has turned from a financial payment tool into an open platform for digital life, which not only allows you to buy financial services, make electronic payments, borrow money, and pay back your credit card, but also adds new convenient life sections such as takeaway and fruit and vegetable superstores. Alipay wants to do just one thing, and that is to become part of people's lives. To achieve this goal, it relies on the transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises to digital business.

Third, how do enterprises layout data center?

From the point of view of enterprise applications, how to apply the data middle office to manage business data and explore the value of data is not an easy task. There are four main processes in the data middle office for enterprises:

(a) Connection

Internally, enterprises need to connect the front-end with the front-end, the front-end and the back-end supply chain, and the manufacturing system with each other. Externally, the data links between people and people, people and things, and things and things in the whole business scenario are identified and planned, and the business data demand scenarios are sorted out in the direction of enterprise characteristics.

(2) Precipitate core competence

Unify the planning, collection and storage of scattered business data, establish a data asset catalog, and lay the foundation for business data governance. The actual competitiveness of each enterprise is different, some win by product, some win by cost. But these core capabilities must be precipitated to empower new business.

(3) Turning data into assets

According to Ali's "digital operation", it is the dataization of the business and the assetization of data. In the past, we didn't even know who the consumers were, and there was very little of that data deposited. Now the technology already allows you to do business data, but how to use the data accumulated by many enterprises? The middle office solves this problem by utilizing data resources and turning them into data assets. Build a data center, production and processing, logistics and transportation, financial control, marketing, customer management and other business lines to form a fast and robust data value processing channel.

(D) Let the assets play value

After the data becomes an asset, you need to find a scene to put it to use. As a simple example, what does Starbucks make money on? It comes with a meal. Coffee itself often does not earn money, just a traffic business. But it is through the scene of things, find a way to recommend to you with meals. This is the process of data asset scenario.

And then, for example, **** enjoy bicycle, itself does not necessarily earn more money, but after collecting data, you can earn money through data services. For companies that open stores offline, it is even more so. It is very difficult to train a good store manager offline, but if you have a lot of data, you can use artificial intelligence to replace a lot of the work of the store manager, because the store manager is no more than replenishment and product selection.

In the future, the data center will be an important support for digital management. Through the precipitation of data and technological means to provide users with better service, the data center stage was born based on this idea. Through the data middle office, we can improve the effectiveness of the enterprise, continuously improve the responsiveness of users, realize data-based operation, and better support business development and innovation.

Today, Data Central Desk is a very attractive digital solution for many enterprises, but enterprises need to drive the digitalization process with business needs, rather than blindly proceeding with a half-understanding of the process, when the enterprise is driven by clear business needs, with a perfect digitalization solution, in order to reduce the chances of failure of the transformation.