Why speed and performance are vital for extracting value from data

Growing businesses must make the most of their data, but that’s much easier said than done. They face challenges from navigating unexpected layers of complexity that have arisen over time to deriving insights from a growing volume of information they collect and process.

According to Forrester research, poor quality data has led to organizations losing millions of dollars a year, with 7% of respondents claiming annual losses of over $25 million. Using new technologies also requires time, effort and training, adding further layers to an already complex enterprise landscape.

This is why investing in reliable and high-performing infrastructure is essential. Enterprise systems shouldn’t just house data but process it at pace while being dependable and flexible to accommodate innovation. High performance means ensuring that data is not only gathered and processed quickly, but that the data itself is genuinely useful. Only then can an organization start feeding this into its long-term plans to grow.

Navigating layers of complexity

Business processes are changing, with a growing set of needs that have to be balanced. In recent years, budgets have tightened while customer and stakeholder demands are more urgent. McKinsey highlights three "tectonic forces" reshaping organizations. They are the infusion of technology into operations, intensifying economic and geopolitical uncertainty, and shifting employee expectations and demographics. This makes balancing business continuity with long-term innovation and risk-taking a challenge.

An example of how complexity can creep into day-to-day operations is workforce expansion when growing an organization. Scaling a workforce leads to complications, including new management layers, potential role overlap, and other inefficiencies.

The unexpected may arise during the growth stage of any organization – but using data can be the solution. Data analytics is key to reducing inefficiencies and tightening up operations, as well as laying the right technological foundations to balance day-to-day needs with the demands of innovation.

Although AI has been around for decades – especially in the form of machine learning – the new class of generative and agentic AI tools unlocks new capabilities. While being forward-thinking and fast in the adoption of such tools, businesses must also understand how to make the most of these technologies.

This entails ensuring both the quality of the data and performance are as high as possible. Implementing these technologies also places extra demands on businesses, including managing new potential avenues for cyber exploitation and risk, and the need for expertise to operate and maintain. That's why it's important to lean on trusted long-term partnerships so utilizing new technologies becomes a source of excitement and not anxiety.

High-performance and reliable data management

Enterprises should lean on high-quality, reliable, and efficient IT infrastructure, including storage capabilities, cybersecurity solutions, and management systems that work together to ensure that data doesn’t become a burden. Finding and securing fast-performing systems means that organizations are better optimized to derive insights at pace, regardless of the complexities that they need to manage. This frees up more bandwidth to focus on the central mission – growth and evolution.

Unleashing AI at a much broader and deeper scale is made easier by systems like Dell PowerScale, which goes beyond storage to feed seamlessly into Dell's AI Factory. Using these tools, you can build, train, and deploy enterprise AI systems much faster, full-stack AI infrastructure offers up to 220% faster data ingestion and up to 99% faster data retrieval than previous-generation systems. This must also come in tandem with measures to strengthen cyber resilience, however. With threats evolving, Dell PowerProtect Data Manager can deliver governance across physical, virtual and multicloud environments – navigating the complexities of each of these while tackling advanced threats.

Hopp Children’s Cancer Center Heidelberg (KiTZ) is a research organization that for a long time struggled to manage the sheer volume of data it generates. Processing this faster means delivering essential answers to patients sooner. The organization invested in the Dell AI Factory powered by Dell PowerScale to store and manage massive amounts of diagnostic and research information for life-saving pediatric cancer treatment. By building an AI and advanced computing foundation, KiTZ managed to generate faster diagnoses, design personalized treatments, and foster global collaboration to tackle childhood cancer.

"We’re now able to run processes in hours that used to take days,” says Robert Autry, bioinformatics group leader. "Thanks to scalable storage and supporting real-time AI-enhanced diagnostics, we’ve dramatically improved patient outcomes and treatment planning."

To learn more about unlocking the value of data with AI, read 'Leading the AI Gold Rush Amid Supply Pressures'