#184 Data platforms: the foundation of business-oriented data analytics with Aruna Kolluru, Chief Technologist, AI at Dell Technologies

<p>In this episode, Felipe sat down with Aruna Kolluru, Chief Technologist for AI at Dell Technologies ahead of our Advancing AI Melbourne event on 6-7 April. She shared how they work on providing solutions for their customers and use all available technologies - AI, IoT, data, etc, - to reach their desired outcomes.</p> <p>Aruna works with clients across a vast range of industries and this is a testament to the power data &amp; AI hold to promote growth and generate business value, regardless of the area you work in. In her own words, data has become the core of innovation for every industry.</p> <p>With the key role data plays in today’s organisations, making it accessible for the analytics team to extract insights from it is of the utmost importance. That’s why data platforms have become essential for providing reliable, quality data that can be leveraged to achieve business goals.</p> <p>Some common challenges Aruna has identified are most data and analytics projects are viewed as technical initiatives without any alignment to the business objectives, and the difficulty business users have in finding and using data that exists in a variety of different formats and locations without having a catalogue or a way to really see all the data they have. She fears some business leaders may view data platforms as just another technology improvement project, when in fact they can be the foundation that ensures data and analytics are set up to support their business goals and produce meaningful insights from all the available data. Once organisations have set up a data strategy that deals with the lineage of the data, its quality and the whole governance around it, it’s easier for the data scientists to analyse it.</p> <p>Other important factors that can help level up your analytics efforts and the impact they have, according to Aruna, are investing in the right analytical tools and fostering a culture of constant learning within your company that encourages employees to improve their skill sets and keep up with the ind