Owning the Data Stream: From Decision to First Data Flow
Deciding to own your tax data is the easy part. The hard part starts the next morning, when you have to explain to IT what you want, put a number on it, and find someone willing to fund it. Most plans die in that gap.
This session is built to get you across it. We walk through what a governed data layer actually is in plain terms, a single agreed source of tax data that every report, tool and agent reads from instead of each system holding its own version. Then we show what it takes to build the first piece of one: who needs to be in the room, what the first ninety days should produce, and how to answer the objections you will hear when you ask for budget. Tax, finance, IT and data specialists share the stage, because this is not a plan tax can execute alone.
Who should attend
Heads of tax and tax technology leads who need to turn a data ambition into a funded project
IT, data and finance transformation leads who will build and run the layer alongside tax
Anyone who has to sell this internally. Bring your IT or data counterpart, since the session is designed for you to attend together.
What this session covers
What a governed data layer is, in plain terms. The three parts it has and what each one does, explained without architecture jargon.
Where your data comes from, and who owns it. How to trace a tax number back to its source systems, and how to settle who is accountable when two systems disagree.
Working with specialist partners. What to keep in-house and what to bring in, how to scope the work, and how to avoid getting locked into one vendor.
The first ninety days, step by step. Pick one data stream, agree its owner, connect one source, produce one output your team already needs. Small enough to fund, visible enough to prove.
Sharing data across organisations. What a shared data network involves in practice, what you contribute, what you get back, and the safeguards that make it workable.
Answering the three objections. "IT owns the data." "There is no budget." "Let us wait for the ERP migration." A prepared response to each, with the numbers to back it up.
What you will walk away with
A one-page picture of the target architecture you can draw for your own organisation
A ninety-day plan scoped to a single data stream, with a defined output at the end of it
Three prepared answers to the objections that stall these projects internally