As if data collection, cleansing, wrangling, mangling and disentangling weren’t frustrating enough to enterprises, the General Data Protection Regulation is going live this month, impacting any business with customers in Europe. How are companies going to navigate all the twists and bends toward a data-driven business model? Will a vendor swoop in and show them the way through?

The first order of business is to cut through the hype and figure out what they are really going to do with their data, according to Peter Burris (@plburris, pictured, left), cohost of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio. “All this other transformation stuff is noise unless you’re focused on the role that data is playing in your business.”

Plainly, businesses need to get clear on how data is going to make them money. Is it through software applications? Building closer business relationships? The Wikibon Research team (of which Burris is chief research officer) has attempted to mark off the steps to clarity through a concept they call data zoning. “It’s kind of an architectural concept where you say, ‘OK, what is the value proposition?'” Burris explained. “What activities are essential to delivering that value proposition, and then where is that activity going to be located, and what do I need to get data approximate to that activity?”

Burris and cohost John Furrier (@furrier, right) kicked off theCUBE’s coverage at the Informatica World event in Las Vegas. They discussed Informatica LLC’s chance of delivering the tools enterprises need to carry out its data mission. (* Disclosure below.)

Compliance off the side and in the soup

Data zoning requires a hard look at the physical realities of moving data, such as latency and bandwidth. Moving data in the cloud can be “off-the-charts expensive,” Burris said. Additionally, intellectual property, governance and legal considerations are potential pain points.

“There are a lot of different sectors of the industry that are looking at this and licking their chops and saying, ‘Man, I can make a lot of money there,'” he said.

Informatica has a strong data-management product suite, and its transition to a cloud-service-based consumption model is right on, Burris pointed out. However, it needs to forge stronger ecosystem relations to tie it all into something that customers can use to execute data operations from start to finish.

Informatica is likely to be among the cadre of companies at the forefront of data-driven transformation, Burris and Furrier agreed.

“Whoever can crack the code on letting data grow organically and be intelligent while maintaining governance and compliance — which could slow things down — that is the secret sauce,” Furrier said. “Whoever cracks that code will certainly go to the next level.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Informatica World event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Informatica World 2018. Neither Informatica LLC, the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE