My Career in Data Season 4 Episode 10: Mageshwaran Subramanian, Managing Consultant, ERP Data Transformation at Delaware North America

Hello and welcome. My name is Shannon Kemp, and I'm the Chief Digital Officer at Dataversity, and this is my career in Data, a Dataversity Talks podcast dedicated to learning from those who have careers in data management to understand how they got there and to talk with people who help make those careers a little bit easier. To keep up to date in the latest in data management education, go to dataversity.net forward slash subscribe.

Today we are joined by Megashoran, Supermodian managing consultant of data migration at Delaware Consulting. And normally this is where a podcast host would read a short bio of the guest, but in this podcast, your bio is what we're here to talk about. Mega Shorin, hello and welcome. Hi, Shannon.

Thank you. Pleasure to be here. Oh, I'm so glad you're here. And I'm excited to hear your story.

You are a managing consultant of data migration at Delaware Consulting. So tell me, for those who may not know, what type of business is Delaware Consulting? Delaware is a global company that offers product and services for enterprise digital transformation. And we are a top-tier partner for a major ERP software.

If a company looking to implement, upgrade, or migrate their entire business infrastructure to an ERP, we are the one who designed the blueprint and configured the new ERP system. Oh, very cool. And just for again, if somebody doesn't know what ERP is, most of our community does, but some people are just getting into data. So what is an ERP system?

So uh ERP system is an enterprise planning uh resources system. So this is like a centralized system for businesses to keep track of their uh day-to-day transactions. Very, very nice. So as a managing consultant of data migration, what is it that you do?

So when a uh big company switches their business system, moving from one legacy platform to a new modern ERP system, they just uh cannot leave their data behind, right? So my job is to ensure that the data migration is seamless. Um I lead and manage data migration projects by building migration blueprint and managing the ETL cycle. ETL is nothing but extract, transform, and loading of the data from the old system into the new system.

Oh, very, very nice. So and how so you work with a lot of data in your job. I mean, that's your that's your whole job. Um so can you tell me kind of like what does a daily typical day look like for you in working with data?

Yeah, definitely. So in before we move any data, I have to figure out what we are actually dealing with, right? Um, I so I spent a lot of time analyzing the the legacy system to uncover patterns, anomalies, and duplicates. So this is called the data profiting.

Um, the modern ERP system are very specific, uh, and they have a very structured language. Uh the world systems speak completely different. So I work on complex um logic required to translate uh the data from one system to another. So this is called this is more of a data mapping or data transformation, and also I make sure that the highest quality of data is migrated from the world system on the new system.

So there are specific tools that we use uh to carry out all these tasks. On top of that, uh, I also just not the data migration. So once the data is migrated from the world system to the new system, we have to make sure that the data stays clean, right, after the system goes live. So I uh build governance strategies to keep the data clean uh from the day one of the new system.

Very interesting. And when you say keep the data clean, so what can happen to make it not clean? So you if we do not have the governance control in place, uh, for example, there is a free text field that a user can enter anything. Uh if you don't restrict that field, uh the user can enter anything, right?

Um, so things like that can be avoided uh with with the data governance controls. Yeah. Um I've been working on some data quality um courses. So I'm I'm diving deep into that and pulling that out because it's a top of mind right now and such an important part of uh of any data project, right?

Exactly. Yeah. So okay, so tell me, uh when you were say six years old, it was just did you was this the dream? What did you say to yourself, I'm gonna grow up and be a managing consultant of data migration at a consulting company, or did you what was the dream at six?

Uh I mean I had no dream of becoming a data consultant. Even though my um my educational background is in computer science, I never thought I would be ending up uh as a data consultant. I think it all started with my first job. My first job is an analyst uh programmer role.

Uh so that's when my my interest toward data became more, you know. But I always love uh solving the data puzzles. So when I first started working with data, I noticed a huge pattern, right? So bad data was the main reason big project failed.

So I decided to focus entirely on fixing that. Uh over time, I went from cleaning up the bad data uh to building tools to catch the errors early. Uh now as a leader, I plan the big picture strategy for our clients and share what I have learned with the rest of the industry. Let's dive into it a little bit more.

I mean, like, so what was your passion then when you were when you were a kid? You know, before you started, before you went into studying uh computer science. What was what was the initial passion when you were young? Uh so growing up in India, I didn't really have any passion when I grew up.

Uh all I wanted to do is to study milk. That's it. Oh, love it. That was great.

That's a passion in and of itself. Um yeah, my sister, I think, will be in school forever. She she loves to, she's just always learning something new, getting a new degree. Um so, but you decided to what got you to major in computer science?

Where how did that come about? So I I always love uh computers, uh technology. So that that's that's the reason why I got into computers. Nice.

So okay, so then you're you're in school, you're studying computer science, um, and then you're landing your first job as an analyst. Uh so tell me, you know, what was it just because it was related to computers? What made you go for that first job? And what was your so tell me a little bit more about that job, what your responsibilities were.

Um what were your job title? First job as an analyst programmer was for uh for an ERP company. So we were building uh ERP for airlines, and um uh so the ERP runs on different platforms and different um databases. Uh for example, uh the ERP can run on SQL Server, Oracle, or DB2.

Uh that's when I I got to work with a lot of data, and I also became an expert in SQL at that point. Oh, very nice. So then where did you go from there? So uh in my first job, I was an analyst programmer and then became a software engineer where I built uh data related uh product.

Uh as I mentioned, um the uh build product to identify the bad data early uh in the project. And then uh from there I slowly uh getting into leading data migration projects and uh uh becoming managers, managing the team of uh consultants. Very nice. So you're evolving and you're you know a software engineer.

So what's moving you forward in your career? What's the next job? Uh so my current position as a managing consultant, I manage an elite data project. I I love that.

And uh I I always like um being a hands-on guy. I love uh I still love developing the migration jobs and uh and uh taking part in uh the technical part of things. Um I would like to continue that. Is that what made you decide to go into consulting?

How do you go from a software engineer to consultant? Uh it's an accident. So uh when I moved from one job to another, uh the uh so I got the opportunity for uh getting into the consulting. So it's more of an accidental.

I think that most of it is right. So so many of our, you know, so many of us in in data are it was not an intentional thing. It's it's something that we found. Yeah.

So what's been the biggest lesson so far in your career? I think uh uh if I had to boil boil it down to one major takeaway. Um the technology is rarely the hardest part. Uh it's the people and the process, especially in this uh digital transformation project that I have been involving in.

Uh the best technology in the world uh won't save a project if the underlying business processes are broken, right? So uh I think the real work is getting the people on board, uh winning the trust and fixing the strategy. Once we have that, uh moving the data uh is the easy part. I hope you agree with that.

So believe that. We we offer training in communication because it's such it is so hard. And it is such an important part of any data job, right? Exactly.

That is true. How have you learned to get better at communication? So this actually uh this comes from experience by uh basically interacting with people. Um uh and also my return communication improved uh as I uh contribute more to the community.

I write online blogs about uh data migration and data governance. So that's one way of just improving your communication. And and uh as I said, uh when you're in consulting, you talk to a lot of people. Um, so it comes with experience.

Yeah, yeah. Did you um have mentors along the way or just just from your jobs? I I had a mentor uh who helped me in some of these aspects. Whether you're leading a data program or building your career from the ground up, the Dataversity Training Center meets you where you are and helps you get where you're going.

Explore expert-led courses, industry-backed certifications, and flexible subscriptions designed for real-world application at every level. Get practical insights you can use today. Start learning at training.dataversity.

net. So tell me, having worked with data your whole career, you know, what is your definition of data? Uh, from data migration perspective, data is not just about numbers on a spreadsheet or tables in a database. Uh, it's a digital memory of a company, uh.

So um uh it is a permanent record of every customer uh you are partnered with, every supplier you are partnered with, uh, every product you have built, and uh every mistake you have learned from. Uh when we migrate the data, we we are not just moving the files, we are canceling a company's entire history so that it can be uh used by them to build their future. So yeah, that that's basically how I look at data. Very nice.

And do you see the importance of data management and the number of jobs working with data increasing or decreasing over the next 10 years? And why? Um I think it's it's absolutely increasing. Uh, I don't see that as slowing down anytime in the next decade or so.

Um every single company right now wants to implement uh artificial intelligence, machine learning, and predictive analytics. Um I think AI AI is uh completely useless if the if the underlying data is bad, right? Uh the companies need data architectures, data engineers, data governance experts to clean this clean the data, uh to structure the data uh before they can before they can anything um cool with it, right? So yeah, I agree.

Yeah, there's a lot of work to be done before a lot of AI can be implemented, uh at least at least implemented well. Exactly. How do you see people in addition to preparing the data, like how do you see people um data jobs evolving in the next few years in in relation to AI? So you you're basically asking me how uh the data professional evolve.

Yeah, how do you yeah, how do you see data practitioners their jobs evolving in working with with AI as as AI evolves? So yeah, there are a lot of tools uh available um uh in the market. So uh even for me, uh so I come from a traditional ERP implementation. Now we are moving to cloud-based uh ERP implementation, right?

So that's that's one uh way of evolving. Um and um the cloud-based ERPs, they come with a lot of AA features compared to the on-premise uh ERP systems. And what advice would you give to people looking into to get into a career in data management? I think um based on my experience, uh learn RDBMS concept, the relational database management concept.

That's going to be really handy for you in the future when you become a data professional and uh learn to write uh SQL query. So uh so uh I do SQL query a day in and day out as a as a data consultant, right? Uh uh I hope you agree with me as well on that aspect. So um RDBMS basics and learning how to do SQL query.

Um, I mean, if you know these two, uh that would build a strong foundation for you to become a data professional. Yeah, I get a lot of questions too. You know, what happens when the AI can write all the SQL queries? You know, um do you think it's still important to under to have that skill and understand that skill set?

I I believe so. Yeah. So the the these are some of the uh basics for data. So data is all about tables and structures, right?

If if you know how to access them, so it's going to be handy for you. Yeah, I agree. I had an engineer tell me that uh her, even though she isn't coding as much anymore, her job has evolved to um debugging. But you see, you still need to understand the code in order to debug it because AI isn't perfect.

Absolutely. As no coder is. Well, Megashore, and this has been uh a great chatting with you. Um, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask if somebody wants to learn more about Delaware consulting and how to solicit your services, where would they go?

Uh you can reach out to me on LinkedIn. Uh I'm going to send you my LinkedIn profile. And also you can um go to Delawareconsulting.com.

Uh uh, you can uh you can get more information from there. That's fantastic. And we'll be sure to put those links in the uh podcast uh page so that everybody has access to that. Well, make shorn, thank you so much for chatting with me today.

Thank you so much for having me. Oh, it's been a pleasure. And uh to all of our listeners out there, if you'd like to keep up on the data latest in podcast and the latest in data management education, you may go to dataversity.net forward slash subscribe.

Until next time, stay curious, everyone. Thank you.