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A Company and its Data 9

Additionally, new concepts such as agility and traceability
of information are needed that did not exist with the same
intensity/degree of importance at the time. It is important to
understand past differences in order to act more
appropriately now.

1.2.1. Past differences

How do we reclaim data when IT heritage stems from
many decades of hard-coded software developments and the
use of software packages?

Taking a new approach to a data model across the whole
of a company, avoiding the big-bang effect, valid for all the
functional and technical IS silos, as well as data exchanges
with partners, is an unachievable task in a single step.

In contrast with the early periods of IT (1960–1980), we
are now facing a legacy that needs to be reformed. This is a
situation that IT experts do not like, as they are keen to keep
their legacy software. It is harder to take away a piece of
software than to add one.

Furthermore, the IT industry is facing a not only
generational but technical regeneration:

– IT professionals who had the first experience of
database modeling across the whole of an IS during the
1970s, are now, increasingly, retiring. And with them, the
know-how of data modeling is disappearing;

– during the past 20 years, techniques have
dramatically evolved, and mastering them is essential in
order to elevate the responsiveness of a system. It is
especially important to benefit from object oriented
approaches, standards such as XML schema and Model