Breaking data barriers

The context

A major player in the automotive industry embarked on a bold strategic transformation to become a fully digital enterprise within three years. Its vision — “people who need information should get what they need, when they need it”— drove an ambitious data and analytics program. Achieving this required dismantling data silos, implementing clear governance, and ensuring compliance with strict GDPR requirements across multiple European operations.

The logic

To realize this vision, the manufacturer needed a robust foundation for its data mesh strategy, enabling value creation through AI and analytics while building a marketplace of reusable data products. This meant defining governance roles, processes, and tools that would make data accessible, trustworthy, and compliant.

The solution

We designed and implemented a comprehensive data governance framework as the cornerstone of the client’s data mesh strategy. Our work included:

• Defining ROI and expected business outcomes.
• Gathering requirements from business lines and IT.
• Establishing roles and responsibilities (data owners, stewards, technical leads).
• Designing governance pillars for master data management, data quality, privacy-by-design, and compliance.

The program also introduced decision-making bodies, developed a knowledge base (guides, templates, videos), and delivered onboarding, training, and change management initiatives to embed governance across the organization.

A major early success was the deployment of a data catalog and metadata management solution. This addressed critical needs such as business glossary management, metadata documentation, data lineage, and compliance artifacts. The solution was configured for ease of use, requiring minimal training, and offered the scalability to support multiple domains and growing user adoption—all while integrating seamlessly with platforms like Snowflake and Dataiku.

Next steps in applied excellence

The data catalog remains a central pillar of the client’s data platform, enabling domain teams to document, share, and govern data products effectively. The next phase will focus on expanding the data mesh to additional domains, enriching the data marketplace, and driving continuous improvement in governance and compliance.