Enhancing Discovery Capabilities in Legendary Client Models: Elevating Information Sharing, Impact Assessment, and Interorganizational Partnerships
At a Look
- Dr. Marten’s, a legendary global footwear brand boasting a rich 60-year history, embarked on a strategic initiative to harness the power of its digital infrastructure and modernize its information management capabilities.
- By opting for Atlant’s proprietary platform, the team quickly implemented a self-service catalog to provide contextual access to their most valuable intellectual assets.
- Atlan’s implementation has significantly accelerated time-to-insight for Dr. Marten’s has streamlined the process of evaluating influencer insights, condensing a typically 4-6 week assessment into mere minutes for its knowledge professionals.
Dr. Martens is a renowned British footwear brand founded in 1960 in Northamptonshire. Initially designed for staff seeking rugged, reliable footwear, the style gained popularity among various youth subcultures and affiliated music scenes, eventually transcending its original purpose. Dr. While Martens initially sprang from humble beginnings, it has since elevated itself beyond its working-class origins, yet still proudly embracing its heritage. Some six decades later, “Docs” or “DM’s” have become ubiquitous, worn by individuals globally as a badge of self-expression and personal identity. As a constituent of the FTSE 250 index, The Firm is listed among the top 250 companies in terms of market capitalization on the London Stock Exchange’s main market.
Of late, Dr. Marten’s steady ascent and evolution as a company are reflected in its significant growth trajectory, boasting an impressive 52% share of total gross sales generated directly from consumer transactions in the fiscal year ending 2023. A crucial component of sustained success lies in a forward-thinking knowledge collective, offering cutting-edge understanding and foresight to business partners entrusted with making informed decisions of paramount importance.
Among them is Karthik Ramani, the world’s head of information structure at Dr. Martens.
As I transitioned from a consumer’s viewpoint within the Enterprise Intelligence realm, my career path evolved through roles in Information Warehousing and eventually Information Engineering before settling into Information Architecture. With unparalleled insight into the entire information ecosystem, Karthik is driven to empower others in maximizing the value they derive from data, workflows, human capital, and methodologies.
And answerable for guaranteeing Dr. Martens’ knowledge is ruled, accessible, and contextualized is Lawrence Giordano, Information Governance & Technique.
As a result of my fascination with Information Governance, I discovered myself within it. “I’m here to clarify that bureaucracy isn’t an obstacle, nor is it meant to hinder people’s actions,” Lawrence emphasized. “We curate knowledge units and ensure their careful maintenance to guarantee optimal performance.” ”
Delivering Sustainable and Worthwhile Development
Guiding and prioritizing Dr. Marten’s company has adopted the DOCS technique, which comprises four key pillars: Direct-to-Consumer, Organizational and Operational Excellence, Client Connection, and Strategic Expansion into Business-to-Business (B2B) markets.
Examples of successful execution of this strategy include the opening of new retail stores in both existing and new markets, characterized by seamless omnichannel experiences that are underpinned by expertise-driven modernization initiatives and supply chain optimizations.
“Most initiatives at Dr. Unlike Martens, we will anchor ourselves to specific core pillars. While particularly focusing on Organizational and Operational Excellence,” Lawrence clarified.
Powering DOCS with the Trendy Information Stack? The notion of harnessing the latest technological advancements to fuel document management systems seems intriguing. What specific features or functionalities would you like to see integrated into this concept?
The information group significantly enhances the DOCS approach by introducing a novel way of working, an agile, product-led delivery methodology where analysts and engineers are seamlessly integrated within product teams. As they collaborate daily with fellow executives and take ownership of the results, it is clear that Dr. Marten’s knowledge group uniquely comprehends the enterprise’s challenges they aim to address.
Prepared and positioned to support these strategic initiatives is a team comprising five core components: Information Engineering, Information Architecture, Information Analytics, Reporting, and Information Governance, which report directly to Dr. Martens’ World Information Officer: Nick Sawyer.
As Karthik emphasized, the challenge lies in harmonizing various features to tackle an enterprise-wide issue that defies straightforward categorization under traditional pillars, necessitating cross-functional collaboration to uncover a solution. “Our primary objective is to ensure alignment with corporate goals, leveraging data insights to generate value and deliver meaningful results to the organization.”
As the organization’s momentum accelerates, data plays a pivotal role in navigating the journey forward, providing insights across multiple channels – including digital – to inform Dr. Marten’s team members opted to rapidly update their skill sets, propelling the group towards a more contemporary knowledge foundation.
As part of our transformative journey, we recognize that knowledge serves as the foundation for grasping our customers’ experiences and desires, thereby informing how we can elevate and refine our approach. Significant investment has been made recently to update and enhance our knowledge platform, enabling us to better address the complexities we face today. To consolidate and streamline information, our aim was to establish a unified platform for facts, thereby ensuring enhanced reliability and scalability in providing actionable insights across diverse departments. We’re dismantling expertise as the primary obstacle to unlocking knowledge and uncovering fresh perspectives.
Karthik Ramani, Global Head of Information Architecture.
Starting with Microsoft Azure as their preferred cloud provider, Dr. With the integration of cutting-edge tools, Martens’ newly refined knowledge stack boasts dbt for data transformation, Snowflake as its scalable knowledge repository, and PowerBI for insightful reporting and visualization, providing a forward-thinking foundation for continued innovation.
Can driving transparency in information be simplified by creating an intuitive and dynamic catalog of trending data?
As part of a groundbreaking approach to collaboration, Dr. To effectively communicate the enhanced features and attributes of Martens’ expertise to a diverse range of internal stakeholders, the team sought a methodology that would render these advancements transparent and easily understandable.
Data Digests à la carte: Savoring Insights into the World of Trends?
* Appetizers:
+ Real-time Analytics: Crunching numbers on social media and user behavior
+ Industry Insights: Expert analysis on emerging technologies and innovations
* Main Course:
+ Trend Tracker: Monitoring shifts in consumer preferences and market trends
+ Market Movers: Identifying key players, disruptors, and game-changers in various sectors
* Side Dishes:
+ Tech Trends: Exploring advancements in AI, blockchain, and cybersecurity
+ Future Focus: Visionary perspectives on what’s next in the world of tech and innovation
* Desserts:
+ Data Visualization: Interactive charts and graphs to help you better understand trends
+ Storytelling: Compelling narratives highlighting key findings and takeaways
Karthik and Lawrence aimed to migrate their legacy expertise into a modern framework, creating a “knowledge menu” that offers a concise overview of their intellectual property in an easily digestible format.
Lawrence clarified that transparency in information ownership, provenance, and high-quality credentials would have been a crucial motivator if the company were to de-mystify its knowledge assets.
Without a modern knowledge repository, queries on knowledge would continue to fuel an inefficient cycle of inquiry, where knowledge seekers would needlessly engage with the information network each time they sought clarification on fundamental concepts, updates, or mathematical operations.
Lawrence recounted, “We devoted a substantial amount of time to addressing data-related queries within our knowledge group, such as ‘Where can I find this metric?’, ‘How is this metric computed?’ and ‘What is the origin of this dataset?'”
Introducing self-service functionality would significantly reduce the time spent by technical teams typically handling such inquiries, while also accelerating time-to-insight for their business counterparts eager to leverage Dr. Martens’ knowledge.
Moreover, the information group navigated a complex landscape by harmoniously meeting the diverse needs of its global audience, Dr., across numerous markets and regions. The Marten entity exhibits unique, localized preferences characteristic of diverse work systems. Metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) can be outlined differently across markets, posing a challenge to communicate in a standardized language and deploy broad capabilities.
“As emphasized by Karthik, it’s crucial to harmonize efforts across both the informational layer and the metadata layer, where one must define data ownership and properties.” “That was another compelling reason to develop not just a solitary knowledge layer within Snowflake, but also to pair it with a unified metadata layer in Atlan.”
A Enterprise-focused Analysis Course of
Rather than conducting their analysis solely within a team of experts, Lawrence ensured that business stakeholders were actively involved from the outset of their project. Dr. Without thorough enterprise adoption, Martens’ knowledge catalog would falter; however, engaging key stakeholders in the analysis ensures their buy-in by recognizing the problem’s relevance, championing transparency and speed, and providing valuable insights into the user experience.
What’s the most effective way for customers to genuinely engage with our product? Can students engage extensively with our vast array of courses, and what strategies can we employ to level the learning landscape? Can we ensure a trouble-free onboarding process for our initial 100 customers post-launch by streamlining every step of the journey? Will they require constant guidance throughout the coaching process, or is there a tipping point where they’ll make decisions independently?
As Lawrence’s paramount concern remained, a sandbox environment at Atlan proved crucial during the proof-of-concept phase, which absorbed Dr. By leveraging Martens’ meticulous metadata and eschewing curated samples in favor of precision, they guaranteed that post-consumer testing with the company would yield results that accurately reflected their future expertise.
As a proof of concept, take the time to genuinely immerse yourself in it, truly understand its nuances, and put it into practical application, even if that means embracing the uncertainty and potential chaos that can arise from a more hands-on approach. Prior to finalizing a product, it’s essential to solicit feedback from both sponsors and customers, enabling them to gain hands-on experience and provide input on their likes and dislikes. will significantly enhance their participation throughout.
Lawrence Giordano, Information Governance & Technique
To avoid unnecessary complexity, Lawrence and Karthik focused on defining their ideal knowledge catalog by identifying features they could not tolerate, rather than simply listing their desires.
By prioritizing user-friendliness and eliminating costly integrations with trendy tools, they ultimately focused on simplicity, ensuring seamless adoption for their business partners.
Despite our explicit statements to the contrary, it remains unclear why this initiative was misconstrued as a technological solution, designed specifically for technical teams rather than its intended purpose. For the purposes of this project, let me clarify that we are referring to the enterprise in its entirety, meaning the entire organization, as opposed to a specific department or entity within it.
A Collaborative Implementation of Atlan
Having selected Atlan as their go-to knowledge hub, Karthik and Lawrence meticulously weigh the merits of implementing it. To avoid Atlan being viewed as just another device, they embraced a philosophy of immersive collaboration with their enterprise counterparts, chose experiential learning where knowledge seekers could discover the capabilities of their new catalog firsthand, and meticulously considered their initial use cases to ensure maximum potential impact from the start.
Making certain Robust Enterprise Engagement
Continuing to collaborate effectively with their business counterparts throughout the research phase, Dr. Marten’s knowledge group initiated the rollout process by hosting a series of workshops designed to heighten awareness about potential use cases and cultivate brand ambassadors for Atlan.
While introducing innovative tools can enhance our learning experience, it’s crucial not to overwhelm users with yet another solution that may lead to familiarity fatigue. “We wanted Atlan to be top-of-mind for users,” Lawrence explained, “so whenever they had a question or sought information, they would naturally think of Atlan as their go-to resource.” “”
These workshops, supported by Dr. Marten’s senior leadership fostered a culture where long-standing Atlan customers felt valued and encouraged to engage with the curated offerings in the catalog, recognizing the benefits of active participation.
Lastly, the early usage scenarios conceptualized by Dr. The Marten’s knowledge group was defined through a value-mapping exercise, identifying the enterprise groups that would generate the most revenue from the platform, determining which Atlan features could deliver these capabilities, and ensuring that early customers would derive value, thereby creating advocates for further adoption.
Treasure Hunts for Context
As their knowledge tooling seamlessly integrated with Atlan, Lawrence initiated another series of workshops, empowering his enterprise colleagues to further engage in the rollout process.
The team’s leader, Dr. Rachel Kim, proudly presented their groundbreaking research on the effects of climate change on marine ecosystems.
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Dr. Rachel Kim, the team’s leader, showcased the impressive progress they’d made on their landmark study investigating the far-reaching consequences of climate change on marine environments. Marten’s analytics team designed an immersive Indiana Jones-themed treasure hunt, challenging customers to uncover five hidden pieces of data within Atlas to recover a stolen gem. With Atlant’s trendy apparel in hand, their business counterparts quickly got to work uncovering insights, actively engaging with the platform, and cultivating a profound understanding of how to leverage its capabilities in their daily routines.
Despite the limitations, the workshop’s most significant outcome was our progress towards a more cohesive team as we entered a phase where we were collectively pushing forward. As we continued to support their efforts, we strongly encouraged the team to start populating Atlan with definitions, building workflows, and validating expert-approved content. It was beneficial to boost their energy levels and foster engagement throughout the program. ”
Lawrence Giordano, Information Governance & Technique
Achieving Swift Progress through Harmonious Convergence of Key Performance Indicators
Through fostering trust among enterprise colleagues, Karthik and Lawrence leveraged their collaborative momentum to develop a value stream mapping training program that swiftly yielded impactful results; concurrently, they established workshops designed to nurture an informed, enthusiastic consumer base – all with the aim of creating a comprehensive metrics catalog and establishing a process for maintaining its accuracy.
By establishing a comprehensive framework for defining key terms and refining crucial performance indicators, the information group carefully matched homeowners with each metric, ensuring that when challenges emerged in the future, a dedicated professional would be available to address them.
As our transformation initiative continues to unfold, we’re sharing our analytics frameworks with the team, which sparks the creation of ‘The Atlas Course,’ a process where we examine the analytics model, identify its contents, outline responsibilities, and assign ownership.
As “Part One” progresses, according to Karthik and Lawrence’s vision, “Part Two” will entail crafting in-depth technical readmes that meticulously outline transformation logic, seamlessly integrated with Atlan’s automated lineage, thereby providing a profound comprehension of Dr. Martens’ knowledge pipelines.
Realizing Cross-functional Worth
For Dr. Marten’s self-service analytics represent a significant paradigm shift, fostering transparency not just for datasets but also for the typically siloed data that previously surrounded them. While their data-driven customers are poised to reap substantial benefits from this initiative, their data team leverages tools like automated lineage to streamline subject decision-making and a “menu” for their cutting-edge knowledge stack, thereby fostering greater appreciation and return on investment in the information transformation project.
“It’s all about cultivating a mindset of faith, conviction, and self-worth, coupled with a desire for rapid market entry, seamless self-serve capabilities, and ultimately, dismantling the hurdles that prevent people from tapping into valuable knowledge.” “Our enterprise clients are focused on solving business problems, not stuck in front of screens and spreadsheets, wasting hours sorting through data.”
Past the short-term wins Dr. Martens’ knowledge hub is poised to revolutionize speed-to-market dynamics by harnessing the power of crowdsourced metadata and curating insights, thereby fostering a culture of autonomous learning and ownership in the years to come, according to Karthik and Lawrence’s visionary predictions.
Demystifying the Information Property
Dr. The Martens’ knowledge stack transformation is not taking place in a vacuum. To amplify operational effectiveness, concurrent efforts to revamp their Enterprise Resource Planning system and Buyer Information Platform have fostered seamless coordination among technical teams, ensuring that updates can be implemented with ease.
“Being within the Information Structure operate, I usually get bombarded by questions in regards to the wider tech transformation that’s occurring and its influence on Information & Analytics,” Karthik shared. Significant transformations are underway within our supply chain infrastructure, product development processes, order management systems, and customer insight platforms. New technological innovations are concurrently fueling a transformative shift alongside our ongoing quest for knowledge expansion.
Prior to the advent of Atlan, all upstream alterations necessitated a manual approach to verifying downstream processes’ potential effects, thereby consuming significant human resources. With Atlan’s advanced automation, Karthik’s team can now accurately assess and mitigate these impacts at a fraction of the time previously required.
“I’ve engaged in at least two discussions where exploring downstream impact would have necessitated significant resource reallocation,” Karthik explained. “Ultimately, getting the project completed on time would have been a challenge. But I seized the opportunity to collaborate with another architect and emphasize the importance of considering the potential impact when modifying column names or adding new ones – as we say, ‘When you alter the column name or add an additional column, this is what it will break or influence.'”
As they collaborate closely with their enterprise colleagues, the value of Atlan increases rapidly; meanwhile, productive exchanges with technical counterparts yield valuable synergies, fostering a growing number of internal champions for Karthik and Lawrence’s efforts and amplifying the returns from Atlan exponentially.
We collaborated on this task, when the Area Architect immediately requested access to the platform, asking if they could gain entry to it; I responded by saying “Yes, of course.” ’,” Karthik shared.
Transforming Your Enterprise for a Digital Future?
As organizations face increasing pressure to stay competitive in today’s fast-paced digital landscape, it is crucial to harness the power of technological innovation to drive growth and success.
While concepts such as cloud-based knowledge repositories or devices for knowledge transformation may appear esoteric to the information group’s business stakeholders, securing their support is crucial for a successful transformation. As Atlan facilitates easier access to knowledge and enhances comprehension around it, stakeholders can more readily appreciate the benefits of the information group’s approach to modernization.
By integrating Atlan into our transformation venture, we effectively linked the provision of an information catalogue with cutting-edge tools, fostering seamless collaboration. While our primary value driver lies in ensuring a unified access to a singular source of truth, where all stakeholders can draw upon the same, meticulously aggregated and verified database, carefully crafted and maintained by the organization itself. We were keenly anticipating that the innovative working model, built upon a unified, self-serviceable knowledge catalog, would revolutionize the way engineers, analysts, and end-users engaged in seamless communication around data – previously reliant on offline interactions via chats and emails.
Karthik Ramani, Global Leader in Information Architecture.
By embracing Atlan, the brand’s adoption of Dr.’s groundbreaking innovations unlocks a plethora of opportunities for transformation. Marten’s transformative ventures are now more transparently presented to their stakeholders, providing clear context on intellectual property ownership for both customers seeking knowledge and practitioners requiring detailed insights, all readily accessible via self-service platforms.
As innovation accelerates, Atlantean entities are poised to play a pivotal role in disseminating contemporary knowledge frameworks, necessitating corporate stakeholders to concurrently develop definitions, descriptions, and ownership structures while making this information accessible to discerning knowledge seekers.
Traditionally, this data would have been gathered through conversational methods or reactive techniques of a different sort. “Now, the new accessibility features are fully implemented and ready to use, often serving as a key component in the overall transformation process,” he explained. The extra bonus is the perfect cherry on top of their success. As Atlant’s influence grows, we’re witnessing a profound shift in practices, with the technology effectively serving as a sentinel that scrutinizes and safeguards the authenticity of our production processes.
With Atlan’s enhanced transparency into knowledge properties, we’re witnessing tangible shifts in behavior and swift corrective actions unfold, as seen in the recent example of Information Engineering identifying that an underperforming knowledge model hindered metadata accessibility in Atlan. As new customers on board with Atlan, Karthik and Lawrence anticipate seamless integration, aiming to detect and resolve issues before they become apparent to end-users.
“As we’ve observed a shift in traditional practices and behaviors, our goal is to amplify this momentum as we expand our offerings.” “This initiative has undoubtedly had a profound impact.” From a governance perspective, this added layer enables proactive governance, rather than being reactive to transformation outcomes.
As the trusted “window to the information world”, Atlan empowers stakeholders to fully appreciate the transformation venture’s value proposition, instilling confidence that the data group is diligently addressing governance, security, and compliance concerns while actively modernizing infrastructure and tooling.
What are the fundamental principles that underpin Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Information Governance? To begin with, let’s define AI as the simulation of human intelligence in machines that think, learn, reason, and perceive like humans.
Dr. Marten’s team is intensely focused on meeting the commitments they’ve made to their corporate partners within their transformative project, but already has ambitious plans for Atlan, pending its completion. As they continue to deliver on pledged usability enhancements for Atlan and track adoption rates, advancements in generative AI hold significant potential for expediting asset optimization and fostering richer understanding around their data, thereby laying a solid foundation for improving governance.
Several novel use cases are emerging, driven by innovative technologies such as Generative AI, which presents exciting opportunities for us. As one of several pilot candidates, we’re embarking on a hands-on evaluation to gauge the potential impact on our curatorial process, ultimately aiming to streamline and accelerate its efficiency. With this baseline established, customers can start building upon it and refining their approach.
By rounding out Karthik and Lawrence’s vision for Atlan, they’re poised to leverage knowledge profiling, classification, and the latest DataOps methodologies, unlocking capabilities that have long been elusive but are now within reach through a platform that will bring their ideas to fruition.
Classes Realized
While significant progress remains to be made in modernizing knowledge expertise, and broadening access and context around proprietary knowledge and capabilities through Atlan, Lawrence and Karthik identify several crucial considerations for their peers, as fellow knowledge leaders, evaluating an investment in a cutting-edge knowledge catalog.
Lawrence: Get Arms-on
Getting my hands dirty is what matters most to me. When evaluating the feasibility of a solution, it’s crucial to factor in the depth of expertise embedded within your existing infrastructure, as well as the compatibility of that expertise with your unique datasets, organizational traditions, and team dynamics. Following our rigorous evaluation of Atlan, this was the pivotal consideration that took precedence. By embracing senior stakeholders in the process at an earlier stage, you’re able to bring their expertise closer to the benefits you intend to deliver.
Lawrence Giordano, Information Governance & Technique
Karthik: Work Agile
By leveraging Atlan’s agility, you’re empowered to pivot quickly and refine your approach, making the most of this innovative tool. Avoid overly rigid implementation approaches that feel like a waterfall process; instead, aim for flexibility and adaptability in your initial attempts to get things right. Then, without a doubt, you’re missing out on the opportunity that Atlanta presents, where you can try something new right away. If it genuinely functions, then it indeed does. If it doesn’t it doesn’t. If an investment opportunity isn’t viable, we’ll reevaluate and redirect our focus to more promising prospects, ensuring a strategic allocation of resources. Be agile. Check and be taught. Attempt new issues shortly.”
Karthik Ramani, Global Leader in Information Architecture.
