1. The current outlook
Data strategy has had to adapt to the evolving complexity of IT environments, however, this continuing complexity makes data strategy harder to define and therefore execute.

Delivering increasingly personalised customer services and experiences is a key competitive differentiator. If you think of an enterprise as a living body, the data is certainly the lifeblood. For businesses to successfully grow, they need to establish digital strategies built on the foundation of this precious resource.
Over time, IT estates have grown in complexity. As new technological capabilities became available within different lines of business, a variety of unique configurations emerged. IT teams continue to face the pressure of providing access to the tools and information people need to do their jobs, and organisations need to gain a competitive edge and deliver better customer experiences.
Line-of-business functions have therefore matured at different speeds and adopted different technologies. So depending on the cloud and data centre models available at the time of adoption, companies have a patchwork of different hardware, software, practices, and policies within their organisation. Integrating new hardware from one department with a legacy system in another—at scale—can be fraught with difficulty.
For a lot of organisations this has resulted in not just a hybrid architecture, but a multicloud environment. Within a single company, data management and protection practices can vary across line-of-business functions and departments. And while there are good reasons for each configuration being the way it is, this variety multiplies the challenges of attempting to securely and effectively utilise data in these environments.
As the importance of deriving actionable insight from information intensifies, what should businesses with a multicloud IT estate do to modify their data infrastructure?
For 40 years, Oracle has attained a deep understanding of data management, and we know that no two businesses are the same. So to get a grasp of how organisations are navigating this multicloud world, we commissioned Forrester to evaluate the current state of data management strategies.
The resulting research paper identified five cornerstones around which any data management strategy should be built:
- Managing data technology across multicloud deployments
- Unifying data across types and sources
- Protecting and securing data
- Ensuring data governance, ethics, and privacy
- Leveraging technology innovation
Given the expediency with which much of the world has had to manage a wholesale adoption of remote working practices in response to the recent global health crisis, understanding and controlling data management has taken on a far greater urgency. In this ebook we explore each of these cornerstones and discuss their importance. We also explore how organisations can ensure they implement each of them swiftly, securely, and at scale.