The Data Weaver

The book The Data Weaver highlights the crucial role of data in the digital age and argues that it will become the most valuable business asset. However, data itself is not enough to excel in today's digital era; companies need a Chief Data Officer (CDO) to manage the entire data process, from data acquisition to actionable insights. The role of the CDO should become a "Master of the Dataverse," capable of leveraging technologies like AI, Machine Learning, and Neural Networks to provide insights for all business units. The book uses fictitious episodes featuring Tim, a senior data executive, to illustrate a CDO's daily challenges and responsibilities. It also delves into technical aspects of data management, such as the importance of SAP S/4HANA and SAP BTP for enterprise business scenarios. It explores use cases and examples in various sectors like customer service, marketing, retail, and manufacturing. The Data Weaver stresses the importance of continuous learning to keep up with rapidly evolving technologies and encourages innovation in using big data for transformative actions.

The book The Data Weaver exposes the significance of data within our digital world and identifies how data will become the most valuable asset in business. Data alone, however, isn't the future. It always requires somebody who knows, who guides, and who orchestrates. Companies of any size need to appoint an accountable person, the Chief Data Officer (CDO), to oversee the entire data chain: from 'finding' the data to transforming the insights into action. While Data Weavers are still not common, their absence pinpoints a problem area that has been neglected for many years: the data universe inside corporations grew multifold over the past years – and not many businesses take full advantage of this Dataverse. CDOs must evolve as "Masters of the Dataverse," able and willing to engage with today's state-of-the-art technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Neural Networks. S/he is the data executive enabling insight and empowering business leaders to use it across all business units. This book provides valuable insight into how a CDO can develop and deploy intelligent data solutions for all lines of business. Aside from many explanations of technical concepts, some fictitious episodes with Tim, a senior data executive, provide spotlights into the daily work as a CDO. These mini stories should show his experiences with data and technologies, his pain points and struggles, and his openness to learning and prototyping new approaches. The Data Weaver lets the reader glance under the hood of data management, explains the importance of SAP S/4HANA and SAP BTP for ERP scenarios, and describes usage scenarios of data intelligence for customer service, marketing, retail, and manufacturing. The book emphasizes constant learning to stay on par with the technology curve. The daily news about Large Language Models (LLM) and big data applications that have filled our inboxes since the end of 2022 are indicators that expansions in technology and software applications come with increased speed. The Data Weaver encourages innovation and exposes the intelligent use of big data to turn data insight into transformative actions.

Andreas Graesser is a computer scientist and Professor of Management Information Systems at the Villanova School of Business (Pennsylvania, USA). He advises 'Digital Business Transformation' at the global biotechnology company CSL and other pharmaceutical companies. Andreas' software and data experiences span more than 30 years. Before founding innovad in 2017 as a company specializing in digital business transformation, he worked for over 20 years at SAP in Germany and the USA. As a Senior Executive (SVP), he advised over 500 customers on various digital business transformation challenges.