While the work world had to operate from living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms, and park benches, the digital data world grew exponentially. As a result, David Geithner notes companies are now realizing they are far more dependent on data than ever before, and that paradigm is here to stay. The shift to digital operations showed everyone in a grand experiment how productivity could easily be boosted if digital tools were made the norm and folks were pushed to adapt. Now, David Geithner sees companies are tackling a new challenge – how to leverage data assets on a regular basis for ongoing productivity growth.
Time for a New Lesson to Follow
Prior to the pandemic, there were already companies moving and leaping forward into the cloud data realm and developing the initial architecture for such practices. The tech industry, naturally, had been working for years with remote resources and around the clock, coordinating worldwide teams in different timezones and locations. David Geithner had personally been reliant on such resources himself in prior companies he worked for. However, it took a nationwide kick-off the branch for the majority of industries to finally realize they truly could operate digitally and see positive results doing so. All of the anecdotal resistance fell by the wayside; folks simply had to adjust to the change and make it work.
Taking Advantage of a New Way of Thinking
Today, no one is going to argue that data isn’t essential to running company operations effectively. That means, David Geithner points out, workforces have to be trained up on how to find data, process it, analyze it and produce new information products from it on a regular basis. They also need the critical work tools to make their jobs effective instead of losing time trying to carve a sculpture of David with virtual clubs and mallets. Once that occurred across the board, companies in every industry suddenly saw an explosion of potential and possibility that was always under their nose but not easily obtainable.
Secondly, data needs to be accessible and delivered timely. David Geithner knows this first hand being a CFO for his current company, Reactive Core. To do that, companies have to work beyond traditional storage assets and embrace cloud channels for the easy, liquid movement of information. The value of data is not just in what information it provides but also when that information is provided. Relevancy depends on both context and timing.
Meeting Needs Creates New Needs Inherent in Operations
Cloud architecture and data-as-a-service have now come into vogue in a daily demand format because of the need to share quickly, update often, and have the latest versions of information at the moment. All of this is possible with Internet connections if the architecture is in place to deliver digital goods on demand. No one wants to be stuck in a critical meeting waiting for bandwidth to catch up with the moment or for a database to finally figure out how to connect to a server. David Geithner notes effective data has to move as fast as we think now.
In the same vein that companies outsourced administrative functions and labor resources that were not part of their core strategy, operations, and profit generation, data collection should also be considered. This is where data-as-a-service provides both advantages to leap ahead as well as valuable cost-cutting benefits too. David Geithner asks why have internal staff spending days and months chewing over external data that can easily be brought in as a package, already managed, collected, analyzed, and summarized for services instead? Further, such information products can also be tailored to mesh with internal company resources as well. Data is commoditized in many ways now; there is no such thing as to propriety digital records when everything flows and shares the same construct formats today. SQL is a great example of this fact and practice.
Financial Efficiency in Data Isn’t Just About Cost-Cutting
David Geithner is no stranger to changes in finance and fast-moving markets. He has seen personally how breakthroughs happen in competitive markets, with the rewards going to those who don’t let themselves be trapped in old practices and self-imposed operational limitations. Instead, David Geithner has been at the forefront of companies like Time Magazine and Conde Naste, both of which had to reinvent themselves for the digital age, pushing for increased efficiencies as well as performance through new environments such as data-as-a-service opportunities. Data-as-a-service is the next evolution of business information management. The question is how many learned the paradigm lesson from 2020 to take advantage of the new world. David Geithner and Reactive Core have already done so.
