How a Leading Entertainment Group Overcomes Data Inconsistencies with OvalEdge

CLIENT’S PROFILE

The client is a leading entertainment group operating integrated luxury resorts across multiple sites, along with international gaming ventures. It offers premium hospitality, dining, and gaming experiences while contributing significantly to the tourism and entertainment industry.

THE CHALLENGE

The client's need for a data governance tool stemmed from a confluence of cultural and operational challenges. Primarily, they acknowledged a significant gap in their organizational culture.

"Our culture, we are not a data-driven culture," the client explained.

This lack of a data-centric approach resulted in data being treated as a secondary concern, leading to inconsistencies and inefficiencies across various business functions. This cultural context formed the bedrock for their data governance needs as they sought to transition from a physically oriented business to one that could effectively leverage its data assets.

Operationally, the client faced issues with data consistency and standardization. A key symptom of this was the proliferation of inconsistent reports.

"They might have the same label, like this is our revenue, but the revenues never match because all the calculations are done differently," the client explained, highlighting the chaos that ensued when executives tried to make data-driven decisions.

This lack of standardization extended to data definitions, contributing to widespread confusion and misinterpretation. 

"One symptom is that you get 9000 reports," the client noted, indicating the extent of the inefficiency and waste. 

Moreover, the sheer volume of redundant reports, initially numbering around 9,000, underscored a critical need for streamlined data management.

Technical challenges further compounded the client's need for a robust data governance solution. Their reliance on legacy systems necessitated custom connectors, a capability that many vendors were unwilling to provide.

Finally, a recent executive-level turnover brought in leadership that demanded data clarity and consistency, providing the impetus for implementing a comprehensive data governance strategy. 

"And what really gave us the push was we had a whole new group of executives come in. [They said], ‘OK, show me your reporting. But your reports don't match each other. What does this mean?’ No one can tell them," the client recounted, highlighting the urgency of their situation.

Combined, these factors created a compelling need for a data governance tool to bring order, consistency, and clarity to their data landscape.

WHY OVALEDGE

In essence, OvalEdge was chosen for its combination of powerful engineering tools, enhanced collaboration features, a commitment to custom solutions, a singular focus on data governance, and its unique offering of tool flexibility coupled with expert strategic guidance. These factors collectively positioned OvalEdge as the ideal solution to address the client organization's data governance challenges and drive their data-driven transformation.

When they evaluated six different data governance solutions, OvalEdge consistently outperformed the competition, particularly in impact analysis, lineage visualization, and schema comparison. These were critical features that other vendors couldn't match.

Moreover, OvalEdge demonstrated a willingness to build custom connectors for their legacy systems, a crucial factor given their lack of in-house IT development resources.

The client highlighted the critical role of custom connector development in their decision, stating, “We've got a lot of older technology, and a lot of the vendors had said to us, 'Oh, you can go and build your own connectors.' OvalEdge was different. They said, 'If you don't have a connector, we are going to build you a connector.' That was a major differentiator.”

Beyond technical capabilities, the client noted, “Collaboration just seems to be more transparent in OvalEdge than in others."

The client's team found the collaboration features to be more user-friendly and efficient compared to other platforms.

A significant differentiator for OvalEdge was its unwavering focus on data governance.

Unlike competitors offering data governance as an adjunct to ETL or other functions, the client emphasized, "The benefit that I always saw right from the beginning was that OvalEdge is a data governance focused tool. That's all it is."

Furthermore, OvalEdge offered a unique blend of tool flexibility and expert guidance, which proved decisive. This expert support helped avoid common pitfalls and maximize the tool’s capabilities, preventing costly mistakes and revisions. 

SOLUTION

The client has strategically begun leveraging OvalEdge’s core features—Business Glossary, Tagging, Data Catalog, Lineage, Impact Analysis, Crawling, and Classification, to establish a structured and consistent data governance framework. 

These capabilities are helping centralize data definitions, streamline data management, enhance collaboration with vendors, and improve compliance readiness. Currently, the organization is still in the onboarding phase, with some business units and technology teams yet to be fully integrated into the platform.

Crucially, the speed of adoption is not dictated by technology alone. While OvalEdge provides the necessary tools to drive governance, the broader challenge lies in embedding data governance into daily operations. This requires a fundamental shift in culture, processes, and ways of working. As the client progresses in their data governance journey, success will depend not just on technology implementation but on the organization’s ability to foster engagement, drive collaboration, and sustain long-term change.

Firstly, they have extensively used the Business Glossary feature to centralize and manage data definitions. The client has built and published an initial set of 120 terms, with 300 more in the current backlog. As the initiative expands, they expect the total number required to be significantly higher. This ongoing effort ensures consistency and clarity in data terminology across the organization. 

They also used the Tagging functionality to create an acronym library, consolidating disparate Excel sheets into a searchable, centralized resource.

Secondly, the client has employed the Data Catalog to store and organize critical data elements. This centralized approach ensures information accessibility, moving away from data silos tied to individual employees. The data catalog also supports data lineage tracking and system change management, ensuring data integrity and accuracy across departments. This is crucial for their strategy of embedding data governance and stewardship into daily operations.

Furthermore, the client has used the business glossary and data catalog to manage data interactions with third-party vendors. These features facilitate a clear and consistent understanding of the data being crawled and accessed, ensuring all parties adhere to the same terms and metadata definitions. Ongoing updates to the data catalog by data stewards maintain the integrity and accuracy of their data governance framework.

Additionally, the client leveraged OvalEdge's Crawling capabilities, Impact Analysis, and Lineage Tracking to consolidate and reduce the number of reports. This involved identifying redundant reports and understanding data dependencies to decommission obsolete ones.

OvalEdge also acted as a catalyst for the client's broader data governance program, with the tool's comprehensive features and user-friendly interface generating excitement and buy-in from the technology department.

Finally, the Classification features within OvalEdge are used to enhance compliance readiness, allowing privacy and security teams to easily classify data and locate personal information.

OUTCOMES

One of the most immediate benefits the client experienced was a significant improvement in business communication and clarity. By utilizing OvalEdge's business glossary, they were able to bring various business teams together to define and standardize terms.

As the client explained, "There's been a lot of business conversations that have been clarified. There's been a lot of misinformation out there."

This process not only resolved existing misunderstandings but also created a foundation for consistent language and definitions across the organization.

Perhaps the most dramatic outcome was the substantial reduction in the number of reports.

"We started at 9,000," the client revealed, "and now we're down to 3,500."

This remarkable consolidation was made possible by OvalEdge's crawling capabilities, impact analysis, and lineage tracking. These features allowed the client to identify and decommission redundant and obsolete reports, resulting in significant resource savings and improved data management.

Finally, The privacy and security teams are now able to easily classify data and locate personal information.

"They're excited about the fact that they're going to be able to say, where is our personal information held? And now they can go to those systems and tick the box,” the client explained.

Moreover, OvalEdge acted as a catalyst for the client's broader data governance program. The tool's comprehensive features and user-friendly interface generated excitement and buy-in from the technology department, enabling the client to effectively onboard the entire team.

As the client noted, "A comment I received yesterday was it's a very comprehensive tool that has a lot of features, and I haven't even started telling [them] about the features yet."

This positive reception underscored the tool's effectiveness in driving data governance initiatives.