One of the most transformative projects I envisioned and initiated within our managed services organization was the development of a centralized data lake. The idea was simple but powerful: we needed to centralize all our operational and tooling telemetry in one place to equip leadership, customer experience teams, platform managers, and beyond with the data they need to make informed decisions. This was more than just about improving internal efficiencies—it was about shifting our organization from being a “people” business to becoming a “people and data” business.

The Vision Behind the Centralized Data Lake

At its core, the data lake project was designed to provide a single source of truth for everything from financials to operational performance. As we continued to grow and scale, it became increasingly clear that one of our biggest limitations was a lack of cohesive, real-time data that could inform decision-making across different levels of the organization.

Leadership needed financial and utilization data to make strategic decisions. Customer experience teams were looking for operational insights and client overview content to better serve our customers. Platform managers needed key performance indicators (KPIs) to ensure their teams were performing optimally. And the sales and client success teams were eager for data that could help them identify opportunities for expansion and improvement within our clients’ environments.

By centralizing all of this information in one place, we could give each team the tools they needed to not only do their jobs better but to do them more proactively. This shift, from reacting to issues as they arise to anticipating needs before they become problems, is a hallmark of the “people and data” business we’re building.

Leveraging Emerging Technology

The innovation of the data lake came from how we leveraged emerging technology to integrate different types of data across the organization. By collecting telemetry from a range of tools—such as our monitoring platforms, ticketing systems, and even financial and human resource systems—we created a powerful repository of information that could be sliced and diced in different ways depending on the needs of the user.

For example, financial and utilization data could be processed and presented to leadership in a way that highlighted underutilized resources or cost-saving opportunities. Customer experience teams could use operational data to understand how well we were meeting SLAs, where bottlenecks were occurring, and what steps could be taken to improve client satisfaction. Platform managers could track KPIs across their teams, allowing them to drill down into performance metrics and ensure that everyone was meeting their goals.

The key here was flexibility. We built the data lake in a way that allowed each user to customize the reports and dashboards they saw, ensuring that they received the information most relevant to their role. This enabled our organization to operate more efficiently, more intelligently, and with a greater sense of cohesion.

The Importance of Good, Clean Data

A project like this only succeeds if the data feeding into it is accurate and clean. As part of the initiative, we invested heavily in cleaning up our data inputs to ensure that what was going into the lake was reliable. Good data is the foundation of any successful services organization. Without it, you can’t trust the insights you’re getting, and bad data can lead to poor decision-making.

We also implemented governance structures around the data lake to make sure that the data stayed clean over time. This meant putting processes in place to monitor the quality of the data, ensuring consistency across different systems, and making it easy for teams to identify and fix discrepancies.

This focus on data quality is critical in managing a services organization, where so much of our success depends on making informed, real-time decisions. With clean data, we can see patterns and trends that might otherwise be hidden, allowing us to act with confidence and precision.

A Garden of Opportunity

One of the most exciting things about this data lake is the way it opens up a “garden of opportunity” for our clients and sales teams. With all of this data at our fingertips, we can identify areas where our clients could benefit from additional services, upgrades, or improvements. This makes project scoping simpler and more straightforward because we can point to hard data that illustrates exactly where improvements are needed.

For instance, the data might show that a client’s environment is running close to capacity, signaling an upcoming need for hardware or software upgrades. Or it might reveal that a certain area of their network is consistently underperforming, indicating an opportunity for optimization. By having these insights readily available, our sales teams can engage in more meaningful, data-driven conversations with clients about their future needs.

Additionally, the data lake allows us to provide proactive care for our clients. Instead of waiting for issues to arise and then responding to them, we can use the data to predict where problems are likely to occur and address them before they affect the client’s operations. This not only improves client satisfaction but also positions us as a true partner in their IT journey, helping them to stay ahead of the curve rather than just putting out fires as they come up.

A Strategic Shift for the Future

The data lake project represents a strategic shift for our organization. We’re no longer just in the business of managing people and processes; we’re now in the business of managing data. This shift allows us to operate more efficiently, provide better service to our clients, and create new opportunities for growth and improvement. It’s about leveraging data not only to optimize our own operations but also to help our clients optimize theirs.

In many ways, this project is just the beginning. The data lake is a foundation that we can continue to build on as new technologies emerge and as our clients’ needs evolve. The opportunities it creates—for better decision-making, for proactive care, and for identifying new business—are endless. And as we continue to innovate and grow, I’m excited to see how this project helps to transform our business and the businesses of our clients.