Coping with Data Crisis

The PwC Global Crisis Survey 2019 stated that 69% of 2,084 executives had experienced at least one (average 3) major crisis in the past five years. 33% were technological in nature.

Lineage simplifies Root cause analysis since much of the upfront mapping work may have been completed prior to the need.

Often organizations experience a serious operational crisis during the year that poses a severe operational, legal, or financial risk. Time is the enemy, and preparation is very important.

A major European bank found one day that an erroneous calculation was changing the financial position of its customers. The changes amounted to millions of Euros. Experts could not pinpoint the source or impact of the error on downstream systems or financial position. Time was the enemy: the error was propagating minute by minute. The financial risk was increasing minute by minute.

Root cause analysis is a method of problem solving used for identifying the root causes of faults or problems. Lineage is important because the sources feeding the problem asset may be unknown or there may be unforeseen sources or calculations.

The bank analysts used lineage to quickly track root cause and pathways of calculation across multiple systems. The problem process was identified, the error stopped propagating, and the affected data was fixed in hours.

More importantly, the problem was fixed before it became a newsworthy issue, providing a significant soft-money savings.

ROI savings for this ongoing program:

Hard-money ROI: Avoid added consulting that duplicates previous analyses and change management. Avoid software specialists to diagnose calculation problems that are not technological
Soft-money ROI: Auditors can use lineage to trace transaction calculations across multiple disparate systems with less IT support. Lineage change deltas can be used to evaluate where calculations have been added or changed since the last review—even to the field level—with more documented processes than ever before