b'32 Partner News Spring 2024CorporateData, data, data: digitising operations to sharpen Defences edgeBy Dave Mason, Chief Data Officer, Thales in the UKData, data, data. This was the call forPut simply, properly harnessing data will action 12 months ago from the then Reardeliver more efficiency and success for Admiral charged with increasing Defencecustomers and lead to higher quality, outputs. A year on, I want to highlightadaptable solutions for our Armed Forces the key lessons weve learnt in digitisingwith a sharper operational edge.our operations in Thales in the UK, and the opportunities and challenges that theSo how do you make the most of the dataDave Mason, Chief Data Officer, Defence enterprise still faces. opportunity in an industry with some veryThales in the UKunique challenges? Like all transformation Over the years, Ive seen many teamsjourneys, the first challenge is understanding grapple with clunky IT processes and largeour organisational landscape.data sets. Modern organisations generate huge amounts of data that needs capturing,The Thales transformational landscape exploiting, and communicating betweenAt Thales, we operate in 68 countries, with 30 multiple people, processes, systems, anddifferent business lines. In the UK, 7,500 people technology. work across 16 sites, using multiple sets of core IT systems and tools, plus hundreds of others. Collectively, we face the challenge ofOur challenge is making all this work together increasing the output of our Defenceto deliver hundreds of projects, at pace, and enterprise. And with ever-more advancedwith increasing flexibilityfrom equipment analytics and AI applications in thisto systems and R&D to in-service support. digital era, we also have ever-increasingWere not alone in this complexity, many opportunities to use data to enable ourof our customers face similar coordination teams to undertake tasks in ever smarter,challenges, even though our specific data faster, and simpler ways. transformation journeys will be different.'