Transformational change in data management is on the agenda at many financial institutions, but how best can it be achieved and what types of solutions are available to support it? These questions and more will be addressed by experts during a panel session at this week’s A-Team Data Management Summit in New York.

Independent consultant Jon Ambos will moderate the panel session, Transformation Challenges: Adopting New Operational Models for Tactical and Strategic Data Management, and will be joined by panel members Henry Cotrotsios, program manager at JPMorgan; Jacqueline Hayes, head of data operations at Wells Fargo Securities; Edward Hawthorne, partner at Element22; and Tom Wise, head of enterprise data management at GMO.

Ambos notes continual challenges with operational data and an impetus across the industry to centralise data functions, particularly in response to regulatory requirements. But he cautions that while centralising data can bring benefits, it raises issues around how to distribute data to downstream systems, how to monitor and communicate changes to the data, and how to ensure it is accurate and consistent. The solution to these problems, he says, is provided by experienced people and a strategic vision of data usage in operations.

Cotrotsios notes the challenge of satisfying many different data consumers with varied needs in a standardised way. He suggests the low hanging fruit of previous efforts to improve data management and reduce costs by relocating people and automating processes is no longer available. Looking forward, he points to the SmartStream Reference Data Utility, of which JPMorgan is a founding member, as a means to help banks share the cost burden of data management while getting the data and accuracy they need.

Hawthorne call for a vision of the future business model and notes that previous plans may no longer be useful. He says any transformational change requires sponsorship from the top of the business and recommends that reference data sourcing should be revisited to drive better usage of the data and that firms should move towards a master data management model to support emerging regulatory and business requirements.

Answering the question of whether data management projects should be tactical or strategic, Wise says GMO is implementing a framework to support decisions on this. The framework covers the steps to making decisions on whether projects are strategic, perhaps considering their impact on people and budgets, and then covers next steps and implementation, ensuring projects can be supported and avoiding the need for repetitive applications of Band-Aid.

To join the discussion and find out more about:

• Approaches to transformation
• Outstanding challenges
• New operational models
• Beneficial outcomes

Register for this week’s Data Management Summit in New York.