First Technology Digital has sharpened its focus on data analytics and business intelligence (BI) with the introduction of First Digital Assessment Services.

Headed up by Dasigan Moodley, practice lead for data and analytics at First Technology Digital, new competencies brought on board by the company will allow it to help clients in data ‘story-telling’.

Says Moodley: “First Technology Digital has bolstered its expertise within the analytics space in order to help local businesses derive the value offered by data insight. As a company that already had a strong focus on building software, it was a natural next step that we provide the technology and infrastructure expertise for our clients to gather, interpret and act on their data.”

Cost reductions and project success can only be achieved with a clear understanding of the appropriate technologies, infrastructure and methodology required for different levels of analysis at the relevant stages of analytical projects, he explains.

“It is here that having the right partner in place – one that effectively leverages industry best practice frameworks to understand how to help reach your organisational goals – gives you increased agility within the fast-paced world of data driven analytics.”

First Technology Digital facilitates on-premise architecture optimisation and relevance – including memory, network capacity, disk space and the computational power needed to explore, prepare and store data; explores machine learning (ML) techniques; trains and evaluates candidate models; and visualises these insights. The company also offers migration roadmap services to bring on-premise and cloud infrastructure together, with a view to keeping analytical systems up-to-date and cutting edge

“Our first step in this process is to perform an information and analytics assessment on the methods and procedures utilised to deliver analytics within the business. Here, we explore distinct areas to verify that the data and analytical capability in place to support your business is readily available and in a consumable format.

“Recommendations from the assessment will range from quickly actionable items, requiring minimal resources, to longer-term, strategic initiatives that encourage a sustainable and effective enterprise analytics programme,” Moodley adds.

Because there are so many different approaches and solutions available within the realm of analytics, it is critical to then identify the best fit for a company’s specific needs.

Rooted in Microsoft offerings, including Azure, SQL Server and Power BI, the First Technology Digital team is able to guide its clients on which technologies can provide an appropriate combination of complexity, interpretability and accuracy based on these objectives, blending effective on-premise systems with a portion of cloud-based analytics.

“It is by taking these steps that First Technology Digital is able to help enterprises transform their one-stop-shop data warehouses into diverse, fit-for-purpose systems that are decentralised, yet integrated and collaborative,” Moodley adds.