Unlocking the value of data via data governance at Aker Solutions

Learn how Aker Solutions (AKSO), a leading energy infrastructure and service provider, is taking a strategic leap forward by implementing a data product catalog solution that revolutionizes its decision-making capabilities, empowering the entire organization to leverage data-driven insights.

Data governance has become a cornerstone for organizations seeking to ensure data accuracy, consistency and security while adhering to evolving privacy regulations. However, infrastructure engineering organizations like Aker Solutions often face the challenge of managing fragmented, unclassified data across different systems. This hampers the ability to implement effective data governance.                                                              

There’s no alternative route though; a solid data foundation is crucial for operational decision-making and proper driving of AI, generative AI and machine learning (ML) initiatives. To address the challenges and embark on its transformative data governance journey, Aker Solutions partnered with Cognizant.

Democratizing data across Aker Solutions
Aker Solutions’ primary objective was to turn data into a strategic asset that supports informed decision-making across the organization. The initiative's core was to democratize data within the organization by providing a unified, searchable 360-degree view of data assets.

Aker Solutions’ approach to improving data visibility and governance focused on treating data as a product. This shift delegates data ownership across business segments, enabling them to take ownership of their data-driven transformation. Together with Aker Solutions, we develop a comprehensive data catalog solution that emphasizes metadata management and end-to-end data lineage governance. The data catalog solution enables seamless access to high-quality data, empowering employees at all levels to make strategic data-driven decisions.

Future-proof data governance with Microsoft Purview
At the heart of the data governance transformation, is the new Microsoft Purview release, designed for business domain and data product governance. The platform enables Aker Solutions to manage technical and business domain governance cohesively. By using semantic frameworks that bridge communication between technical and business stakeholders, the solution enhances data product governance and aligns with Aker Solutions’ strategic goals.

We worked in tandem with Microsoft to automate metadata and lineage extraction from Aker Solutions’ data hub (Cognite Data Fusion), overcoming a significant connectivity challenge and enabling smooth data exploration. A custom dashboard now provides a 360-degree view of data products, offering stakeholders real-time insights and enhancing data literacy across the organization.

Key benefits: strategic impact on fulfilling data governance objectives
With a focus on operationalizing data governance, Aker Solutions is positioned to become more agile, data-driven, and competitive, especially in the fast-evolving generative AI era. Aker Solutions continues to transform how it manages, accesses, and governs data, all while driving business growth and innovation. Upon full implementation, the solution will provide:

• End-to-end data lineage visibility: Provides a comprehensive view of data from source to consumption, improving transparency and accountability.
• Single source of truth: Streamlines data governance and ensures all stakeholders have access to consistent and accurate data.
• Enhanced data discovery: Automates data product discovery, improving efficiency and enabling faster insight-driven decision-making.
• Compliance and security: Ensures GDPR compliance through robust data classification and governance features.
• Operational efficiency: Accelerates digital transformation, positioning Aker Solutions as a leader in data-driven decision-making within the energy and infrastructure engineering sector.

A future roadmap for data governance excellence
As Aker Solutions continues to roll out this solution, the focus has started to shift toward organizing data products under business domains, offering a unified approach to data governance. We will continue to collaborate with Aker Solutions to define, plan, and implement key data products that drive strategic decision-making and tangible business value for the organization. Furthermore, the developed solution’s connectivity capabilities will be leveraged further, enabling efficient metadata and lineage extraction & governance from in-house data sources and data warehouses.

For more insights into how Cognizant is driving digital transformation through innovative data and AI/generative AI governance, visit our Data and AI service offerings.