This article is the first part of our three-part blog series based on our position paper about developing data-centric software. This series explores why organizations struggle with their software landscape, how traditional approaches keep data locked in, and how our solution SEm® can help you build scalable, future-proof solutions.

Why organizations get stuck in their software landscape

In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, organizations are having trouble keeping up with their software landscape. Many are aspiring to become data-centric and improve the interoperability of their applications. Yet the reality is more complex. Data is often scattered throughout the organization, incomplete, inconsistent, or stuck in silos. 

These challenges are not just technological but deeply ingrained in the way organizations create, share, and manage information. From document-heavy ways of working to the way applications are procured and developed, these habits make it difficult to move toward true data-centricity.

Before we can explore what it means to build data-centric software, it’s essential to understand the journey organizations take in handling information, and why so many get stuck along the way.

The road to data-centric

When it comes to handling data, we can identify three levels of maturity. 

1. Document-driven
The first is document-driven. At this stage, information is stored and lives in files filled with text and images, whether on paper or digitally. While these documents often provide useful information within their intended context, they easily get buried in each business’s mass of information generated. 

Secondly, people struggle to reuse documents in new contexts, they duplicate work, and experts keep valuable knowledge in their minds because only they understand the documents’ structure and meaning.

2. Software-driven (application-centric)
The next step forward is software-driven management. Where software applications is the main driver for the way data is managed. This is a clear improvement over the document-based approach. Tasks like redrawing a building plan become faster and easier within dedicated tools. 

However, issues soon arise. Different departments or organizations often use different systems, file formats, and terminologies. Sharing data becomes difficult, sometimes forcing teams to start work from scratch. Even worse, older files may no longer be compatible with current software, turning valuable information into information that the current systems cannot read.

3. Data-centric information management
This leads us to the third and final level. Data is modeled and expressed in a way that is independent of specific software but still readable by machines. This means that the data itself becomes the foundation instead of software dictating the data structure. 

Software then operates on top of this shared data model. In practice, this makes data more reusable, interoperable, and future-proof. Different parties could interpret and adapt a drawing without redoing work, since they agree on and maintain consistent underlying data.

Importantly, becoming “fully data-centric” is not an all-or-nothing transformation. No organization is 100% data-centric. The best way forward is to improve one process at a time, analyzing how people, processes, and software interact and gradually moving toward greater maturity.

Figure 1: From document-driven to data-centric

Conclusion

Documents and siloed applications lock organizations’ data, causing them to get stuck in their software landscape. Moving toward data-centric information management offers a way out: it reduces duplication, increases interoperability, and ensures that data remains usable as technologies evolve.

This shift does not happen overnight. It´s a journey where each step toward data-centricity brings more clarity, efficiency, and long-term value. 

Curious to learn more?

This blog series is based on our position paper: Developing Data-Centric Software. You can download the full paper below to dive deeper into the concepts and discover how to apply them in practice.