Leveraging data platforms to drive business growth in the AI era

A few years ago, I was part of a conversation that will be familiar to many technology leaders. An organization wanted to standardize operations by moving every team onto a set of common applications. The intention was sensible: fewer platforms, greater control, and simpler governance. But the deeper we looked, the clearer the problem became. Sales, finance, operations, project teams, and customer service did not work in the same way; different business units catered to different products, regulations, and customer types. Forcing them into common applications would create consistency on paper but also introduce restrictions and workarounds in practice.

This was before AI became mainstream, when the focus was on reducing IT complexity and cost and improving governance. Yet there is a deeper lesson — one that reverberates now that business agility and innovation have become key drivers of growth.