Transforming Futures Brokerage with Data Mesh: Overcoming Data Analytics Bottlenecks
Leading Futures Brokerage Firm Transforms Data Bottlenecks into Business Agility using Data Mesh Approach
The journey toward digital transformation can be taxing for any organization, grappling with legacy systems and modern technology complexities. One global futures brokerage found their progress stifled by their systems and existing processes.
Their clients rely on the firm for quick and reliable access to insights. Fast, accurate data access is also critical to the organization’s internal operations. However, data was quickly becoming a bottleneck internally and externally. The organization’s vision was to bring value to customers faster by enabling wider access to vital data resources.
In partnership with Burwood Group, they built an accessible cloud-based data platform that enables:
Quicker time to insight
Business innovation
Increased workload capacity
Increased data governance
The Problem: Growth Inhibited by Restricted Data Access
Data Bottleneck
Lack of Business Agility
Inadequate Technology
Data Governance
The pace of global markets is rapid. Regulatory requirements and risk analysis are constantly changing. However, the legacy process for developing reports at the firm meant months could pass between a report request and its delivery. In that time, the report could become meaningless, costing the organization and their clients the competitive advantage.
Data access was a barrier for the organization to scale its business. At the time, Central IT had to develop all reports as there was no unified platform to enable self service for business users. This bottleneck led to long turnaround times, poor data quality, and sluggish decision-making. Compounding the issue were the demands of a global team and global clients.
Streamlining Business with Data Mesh
The company aimed to eliminate inefficiencies and enhance the worth of their data for both the business and their clients. For this purpose, they collaborated with Burwood Group, relying on Burwood’s proficiency in modern data platforms to maximize value in the shortest time possible. Burwood worked with the brokerage to re-envision their data management process, allowing for swift scalability and diminishing the time required for SMEs to access data from days down to minutes.
Solution Overview:
Data Mesh platform using Azure Databricks and the Azure big data ecosystem
Two initial data domains aligned to global business functions
Azure Databricks, Azure Data Factory, Data Lake Storage Gen2, Azure Synapse for data ingest, transformation, storage, and end user access
HashiCorp Terraform for platform infrastructure deployment and management
PySpark on Databricks for data product creation
Synapse for technical end user access to data products
Power BI for business user access to data products
Microsoft Purview for data governance
Burwood Group helped the organization build a cloud-native data platform based on the Data Mesh architecture, using Databricks and Azure big data services to create a scalable, secure, and flexible data environment. Burwood also trained and supported the organization to adopt the platform and foster a culture of data-driven decision making.
Initially, the organization piloted the platform with the US risk and UK regulation teams. These functions are essential for the company’s success, and slow data requests were impeding their performance. Targeting these teams resulted in the fastest time to value for the organization. Additionally, the organization was able to enable global operations, a key goal for the project. Burwood developed a cloud data platform that enabled faster and more accurate insights into their trading risk exposure and enabled the teams to respond quickly to various regulatory requests. Moving forward this platform can be seamlessly rolled out to the wider business, creating a unified and agile data ecosystem that supports their growth and innovation.
Business Results
At A Glance
50% reduction of client’s expected project timeline.
99.9% decrease in time spent for SME to access data (from days to minutes—self access)
Instead of letting vital information sit unused, the organization is now harnessing data to scale their business by leveraging a cloud-native data platform. This has enabled:
Streamlining business processes
Faster and more useful insights, both internally and externally
Business innovation
New pathways for monetization of data products
Faster value to clients
What’s Next?
Burwood Group is now working on a follow up project to promote the proof of value data platform to production, after which the organization’s goal of global self-service data access will be realized.
Burwood continues to be a key strategic partner for the organization’s data platform and strategy. Burwood’s consultants provide strategic input around iterations on existing data domains and data products. Burwood consultants also assist with scoping new business requirements to design new data domains and data products for promotion onto the data mesh platform. Additionally, Burwood’s Managed Service will provide Tier 1 monitoring and support to the data mesh platform.
Burwood Expertise:
Product Innovation
Data Platforms & Strategic Cloud Enablement
Big Data Analytics
Project Management
Client Information:
A leader in the futures industry that provides brokerage services to institutional, commercial and retail clients.
Partners:
Microsoft
Defining Key Terms
What is a Data Mesh?
A data mesh is a decentralized approach that treats data as a product. It enables expert teams rather than a central administrative group to own and manage their own data domains and data products. A data mesh can help organizations overcome the challenges of centralized data lakes or warehouses, such as data silos, slow delivery, poor quality, and governance issues. A data mesh can enable faster and more reliable access to data, improved collaboration and innovation, and better alignment with business goals and customer needs.
November 18, 2024
