(US and Canada) Nitin Sethi, Global Director – Data Analytics, Enterprise Architecture, Strategy, and Digital Transformation, Visteon, speaks with Jason Masker, Field Chief Technology Officer, Stratascale – an SHI Company, about the relationship between data, digital transformation and business value delivery.

Sethi shares his views on the relationship between digital transformation and data. He says building a foundation for transformation is essential, which is more of an output journey. It is not possible to deliver the right outputs without a foundation.

He notes that data has become a critical backbone for everything, especially digital transformation. It is about creating data that helps senior executives and business leaders make the right decisions.

Sethi says there are three facets to aligning an organization’s transformation efforts with business value: running, growing and transforming. Running the organization efficiently to do something new is followed by growth and transformation.

He emphasizes further that technology is just an enabler, and every technology and system investment has to have achievable business outcomes. They could be tied to the organization’s bottom line or top-line metrics. The organization can also translate value into business language and outcomes.

Two to three years is an excellent timeframe for long- and short-term goals based on technology’s evolution. Sethi points out, however, that looking at the long-term perspective is necessary. He advises not pursuing too many technological solutions that are still evolving. He concludes that the idea is to make things simpler, smaller, leaner, and scalable.