Before starting development, it’s essential to carry out some essential fact finding, which is typically termed the ‘discovery phase’ or ‘requirements definition’. This involves putting in writing who the solution is for, the problem it solves and the desired outcome. It’s tempting to skip this phase and to start building right away, but the time spent forward planning significantly shortens development times and reduces waste. This is particularly the case for the large, long-established organisations that Delta Capita serves, as they have a range of technologies, data and people that need to be co-ordinated to change together, whilst maintaining complex operational workflows. Clients can spend millions of pounds a year on data strategy consulting alone for extra direction regarding this first step.
Next, the most successful projects have a defined set of commercial objectives that are, as far as possible, linked to a target increase in margin within a realistic timeframe, with estimated development costs deducted to deliver a return on investment amount. Typically, Delta Capita projects focus on time saved through automation, a decrease in fines from regulatory non-compliance, and the creation of new insights to increase revenue. Whilst it’s hard to get commitment to goals and to forecast results, goal setting brings focus and internal credibility.
Once the team has a strong, customer-centric idea with a clear commercial benefit, the next task is to break down the problem into parts. The most common breakdown for this is into the categories of people, processes and data, which are linked to elements of the solution to be built over time. Getting commitment from the right people early helps get high quality inputs, particularly with mapping out the current state and getting agreement on the target state. Agile project management tools help ensure projects remain on-track and that risks are escalated as early as possible. Tech stacks and organisations have become fragmented because of growth through acquisition and it takes months to identify and build relationships with the right people, as well as understand what data is available, to get access to it, interpret it and refine it for use.
Development teams need time to understand the data they are working with and need commitment from the right stakeholders to provide their subject matter expertise. Data quality is always a challenge and its limitations need to be flagged to the project sponsor as early as possible with recommendations for plans to address them. To mitigate this risk, clients are enhancing their data governance, which is speeding up the pace of development and improving solution quality. At Delta Capita, we believe that knowing our data well is fundamental to any project, not just those categorised as a ‘data’ project.
How Delta Capita can help
Data and Analytics consulting is a key growth area for Delta Capita, with increasing investment from clients and growing sponsorship at board level, particularly from Chief Data Officers. Our consultants bring deep commercial analytics expertise, helping financial services organisations unlock value from their data, whether through automation, regulatory compliance, or revenue-generating insights. With access to advanced tools and technologies, our teams are able to deliver faster, more impactful solutions. We continue to invest in long-term client partnerships, supporting the full data lifecycle from strategy to execution, and aligning delivery with clear commercial objectives.
Get in touch today to find out more about how Delta Capita can support you.
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