3 Takeaways from Data Company Summit London 2023

Delphix’s 2023 Data Company Summit (DCS) London was an outstanding event. Held at Sea Containers House adjacent to the River Thames, DCS presented IT leaders and professionals with a fantastic opportunity to learn how technology leaders are addressing key topics on the CIO agenda, recognise IT innovation, and network with new and familiar peers alike. We had twice as many attendees as we had at DCS Paris last year, with over 100 professionals attending DCS London.

The agenda was packed full of keynotes and panels representing a wide variety of industries. DCS London featured luminary speakers from ABN Amro, Allianz Technology, ASSA ABLOY Global Solutions, Banca Popolare di Sondrio, BPER Banca, London Stock Exchange Group, Metro Bank, Michelin, Sky UK, Virgin Money, and more. They shared experience, insights, and advice on multiple important topics, including how to: empower multicloud data governance, enhance application lifecycles, unlock sustainable business opportunities, accelerate productivity and innovation, transform banking and financial services through data delivery and compliance, and more.

Below, I’ve outlined three of my favourite takeaways from the event.

DevOps Test Data Management Helps Businesses Drive Sustainable Digital innovation 

Back in May, Delphix was honoured to support the inaugural SustainableIT Impact Awards. These awards were given to technology leaders and their C-suite partners who exhibited leadership and achievement in driving environmental, social, or governance (ESG) sustainability change. It was an inspiring event that showed IT leaders’ commitment to advancing sustainable IT initiatives across the world.

DCS London continued the IT sustainability conversation within the lens of advancing digital transformation. In one panel, ASSA ABLOY Global Solutions Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer Niklas Sundberg, Allianz Technology Global Head of Sustainability Rainer Karcher, and ABN AMRO CIO of Sustainable IT Wiebren van der Zee explored a number of practical strategies for reducing energy consumption, minimising carbon footprint, and implementing sustainable IT practises throughout an organisation. 

For instance, van der Zee spoke on how being transparent on energy consumption allows ABN AMRO to work with product owners to reduce their carbon footprint:

"We have 2500 plus applications and all applications now have an energy electricity metric near real time, showing how much kilowatt hours they are using and how much CO2 they are emitting that go with it. And with that data driven [approach], we can also then go to the responsible product owner or DevOps team that's involved and say, ‘well, you're in the top 25 energy consumption wise or carbon emission wise. What can we do about that?’ "

As IT executives are trying to advance digital innovation sustainably, they’re also looking more than ever towards technology and automation to help them cut costs and remove productivity hurdles while staying ahead of the competition. In his opening keynote, Delphix CEO Jedidiah Yueh discussed how DevOps test data management (DevOps TDM) holds the key companies need for addressing automation deficits, overcoming innovation limits, and developing and delivering sustainable IT solutions that utilise industry best practises. DevOps TDM helps companies execute millions of continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) runs per month— the new standard for world class innovation. And it’s available for all to use.

Maintaining Data Compliance Amid Innovation is a Key Item on the CIO Agenda

One of the top trends that are shaping the future of the CIO office is the increasing need to combat cybersecurity risks and meeting compliance requirements. As businesses drive digital transformation, they must also practise proper data management and governance to keep their customers’ data safe while staying compliant. 

Optimising data privacy and security, of course, is easier said than done. The rise of machine learning, cyberattacks, and changing regulatory requirements makes proper data stewardship all the more important in today’s business environment. But the increasing adoption of multicloud environments has also made managing sensitive data across various lifecycle environments a major challenge for organisations.

Multiple speakers and panels throughout DCS London shared practical strategies and insights on how to achieve data compliance, navigate multicloud environments, and reconcile the two as businesses further drive success in their organisations. A notable example of this occurred during a panel featuring Metro Bank Engineering Chapter Lead Keith Ndhlovu, LSEG Database Product Manager Alex Wilshere, and BPER Banca Head of Architecture and Shared Services Nicola Testa.Ndhlovu explained why data masking has become an important tool for maintaining compliance at Metro Bank. “Working in a highly regulated environment, it is very important to make sure that we do not have any personal identifiable information where it does not need to be. So masking is crucial for us.”

During the same session, BPER Banca Head of Architecture and Shared Services Nicola Testa made an interesting point about the importance of compliance to a company— and especially a bank. 

"Compliance for me is a way in which we show our customers that they can trust us and they can trust putting their money underneath the personal data with us. So compliance from a broader perspective is not just complying to the laws, but being the most important capital that a bank has, and that is the trust of their clients stemming from that." 

It’s clear that the importance of data compliance and data governance extends far beyond just adhering to government regulations— it maintains a promise kept between a company and its customers. With that trust on the line, data compliance will remain a major priority for the CIOs of today and tomorrow.

Delphix Can Help Businesses Unleash Continuous Innovation & Compliance

The theme of this year’s DCS was “Unleashing Continuous Innovation & Compliance,” and both keynotes and panels throughout the event exhibited the successful strategies that companies across industries have leveraged to further their digital transformation goals while maintaining compliance with data privacy regulations.

With application and data delivery challenges growing by the day for many companies, innovating while maintaining compliance can be challenging. As we’ve seen, improving customer experience digitally, ensuring privacy and security, modernising TDM, and improving sustainability are all hurdles that businesses must clear in their quests towards innovation.

Delphix can help organisations clear these hurdles as they accelerate their pace of innovation.  

Delphix's DevOps Data Platform unifies data governance, compliance, and automation across the multicloud, accelerating innovation while reducing costs and risk. Multiple speakers noted the key differences that Delphix has made within their organisations. In a session about how Delphix has modernised multi-platform applications, Virgin Money Quality Engineering Chapter Lead Kirsteen McSkimming notably said, “Delphix has really revolutionised how we operate as a business, and I'm really excited to see how it's going to expand the organisation and how we're going to take it forward.”

From adopting CI/CD practises to shoring up data recovery capabilities, companies have employed Delphix across their application lifecycles to help them mitigate risk, increase compliance, accelerate speed to market, modernise technology, and deliver on the future of sustainable data. As our customer, UNISYS Managing Director Rudy Gonzalez once said, “Delphix is like the magic sauce for data.”

To learn more about how Delphix can help your organisation unleash continuous innovation and compliance, click here.