How Alation Helps Asia-Pacific Organisations Drive Data Culture

Organisations worldwide look to the Alation data intelligence platform to help teams find, understand, and trust the data they use to scale, accelerate, and grow their impact. Trending issues such as data usage in artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives may capture most of the headlines. Still, the core challenges of data governance and compliance, risk management, and data culture maturity are catalysts for many of our customers’ initial need for a data intelligence platform. Those customers seek to move beyond data governance as they turn those investments into business value.

A significant portion of Alation’s global growth originates in the Asia-Pacific region (APAC). We continue to invest heavily in this market as more organisations pursue a data intelligence platform that reduces risk and alleviates regulatory compliance pain but is also easy to use for business users, delivers real business results, and does it all quickly and easily.

Data Intelligence Transcends Borders

Organisations in APAC confront growing risk management, data governance, and data sprawl issues. Regulations like the Australian Privacy Act, Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA), India’s Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, and others add pressure and burden to organisations to better control how data is collected, managed, and disposed of. Obviously, getting a handle on data and understanding where it comes from, where it’s being used, who is using it, and why is critical for compliance with these and similar types of regulations.

Noncompliance is not an option, as organisations that forego it risk reputational damage, security breaches, and hefty fines. In Australia alone, cybercriminals have breached data at schools, health ministries, and government entities. However, compliance is a significant investment. And getting the most return on every investment is prudent for every organisation.

But organisations want more than just a tool for risk management or a point solution for data governance. Sure, prominent and high-profile data breaches put pressure on everyone to beef up data protection efforts. Smart leaders want these efforts to serve as a foundation for broader data modernization initiatives, pervasive data governance that informs instead of impedes, and new AI, analytics, and more initiatives.

Some vendors might not be up to the task of providing such a broad array of data intelligence capabilities. Alation is.

Alation is All In On APAC

Alation’s commitment to serving APAC continues to grow. In May 2023, we announced the opening of a new Alation office in Chennai, India, with a 160-person strong team. That added to our existing offices in Bangalore, Singapore, Sydney, and Melbourne, which combine to bolster our dedication to helping organisations in APAC achieve their digital transformation goals.

Today, Alation has over 200 employees in the region, accounting for nearly 30% of our global workforce. (We even have career opportunities throughout APAC, if you’re looking for an exciting role at one of Inc. Magazine’s Best Workplaces!)

We also have an Alation data centre in Tokyo, Japan (adding to those already in Singapore, Australia, the United States, and Europe). Two strategic partnerships in Japan are further supporting local businesses in their quest for data culture. On the heels of a successful implementation at NTT Docomo, Japan’s largest telecommunications company, the Venture arm, NTT Docomo Ventures, invested in Alation to advance data initiatives through the NTT group and its clients. And Japan’s leading systems integrator, ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation, will re-sell Alation in Japan.

What’s more, Alation recently announced accreditation by the Infocomm Media Development Authority of Singapore (IMDA), which assures government and large enterprise buyers that Alation is a trusted data intelligence partner to accelerate digital transformation and business growth. And we held revAlation Sydney in November 2023 to explore what’s next in data intelligence.

Partners are also a critical part of our ecosystem. Alation’s Open Connector Framework offers broad and deep connectivity with support for more than 100 pre-built connectors and a program to empower developers to build more as needed. And as the 2023 data governance partner of the year to both Snowflake and Databricks, global customers can rest assured that they’re getting a premiere data governance platform.

Together, these efforts put Alation's expertise on the ground across APAC to serve our customers, using local knowledge of the countries, companies, regulations, and unique business needs.

Serving APAC Customers With APAC Expertise

Alation serves more than 140 customers in the region, including Ampol, Cbus Super, Domain Group, Loyalty New Zealand, SparkNZ, and Virgin Australia, to name but a few.

• GXS, a Singaporean bank, uses Alation to build a strong data culture as the company transitions to AI-driven technologies that deliver trusted results.

• Cbus, an Australian superannuation fund trustee, uses Alation to reduce data search times by up to 80%, protect sensitive data, and build a stronger data culture. 

• HBF Health Ltd., an Australian health insurer, uses Alation to increase data literacy and trust in data and decrease business reporting risks.

• Endeavour Energy, an Australian energy supplier, accelerates data discovery to facilitate forecasting with Alation.

Data governance challenges are why so many organisations choose Alation. But our data intelligence platform takes a different approach to data governance, especially in APAC. Here are the highlights of what makes Alation a better choice:

• Localised expertise. Our local APAC teams have deep knowledge of challenges driven by data governance solutions, such as the aforementioned country-specific regulations that require unique yet comprehensive policies, workflows, metrics, and more.

• Pervasive data governance. The Alation data intelligence platform goes well beyond regulatory and compliance needs to turn data governance into a competitive advantage. Alation uses AI to help stewards streamline data classification and policy assignment tasks. The Alation Business Glossary centralises essential definitions to promote business-centric knowledge to boost confidence when making data-driven decisions. And, Alation makes it easy to measure data curation progress toward goals.

• Intuitive for business users. Alation is easy to use for those who aren’t data scientists or technology professionals, a critical element of building and maturing a data culture. Our consumer-grade interface creates a familiar, inviting, and intuitive experience for business users of all skill levels without unnecessary or laborious workflows. These are the finance, sales, marketing, and operations teams who make so many of the daily decisions that rely on finding, accessing, and using the right data in the right ways, and they want a simple solution to do just that.

• Accelerated adoption. Alation’s Active Data Governance Methodology takes a people-first approach that empowers workers to take ownership in building and participating in a data culture. It doesn’t take an expert to be a data steward, for example, but many workers are defining, producing, and using data. Alation makes it easy to engage those data consumers and creators in data culture and data literacy efforts.

• Easy migration. Some may have already deployed another data governance tool and found its limitations or now need to move on from a provider not focused on APAC. Alation offers a pre-packaged migration that saves time and captures much of the effort you’ve already put into another system.

Learn More About Alation and APAC

APAC is an important region as the Alation platform helps organisations solve data governance and compliance challenges, mitigate data and business risks, and advance data culture maturity. And, as those challenges are addressed, Alation delivers even more capabilities to extend your investments into tangible value for business users and the entire organisation.

To learn more about the Alation data intelligence platform and how it is already helping organisations in APAC, download this white paper.