How VE3 designed a bespoke data discovery capability for a major national tax and revenue authority — operationalising a mandated toolchain into a single, federated knowledge base.
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How VE3 designed a bespoke data discovery capability for a major national tax and revenue authority — operationalising a mandated toolchain into a single, federated knowledge base.
A bespoke 'Human-plus-Machine' discovery framework operationalising a mandated BPMN 2.0 / ABACUS / AXON toolchain
As a vital national institution handling both tax collection and welfare administration, the sheer scale of the operation is immense. The success of Europe’s largest digital transformation hinges entirely on mastering a massive, fragmented, and constantly shifting data landscape. With millions of families relying on these services, the margin for error is virtually zero.
The organization has identified its single biggest vulnerability: a lack of rigorous data management, specifically in process and data discovery. Without a deep, accurate understanding of how data flows through the system, the entire transformation risks falling into a trap of compounding delays, ballooning budgets, and compromised, scaled-back delivery goals.
The technical requirements are exceptionally demanding. The client has explicitly banned generic, templated methodologies, requiring a bespoke approach. At the same time, they have mandated the simultaneous use of a highly specific, advanced toolset: BPMN 2.0 for process modeling, ABACUS for enterprise architecture, and Informatica AXON for data governance. Integrating these distinct, high-capability platforms into a unified strategy is a massive hurdle.
VE3 designed a single, holistic, end-to-end framework rather than a choice between tactical discovery and strategic advisory. The two reinforce each other: tactical work feeds the strategic asset, and the strategic framework makes the tactical work scalable and reusable. At its core sat a five-phase 'Human-plus-Machine' engine.
Rather than forcing all knowledge into one platform, VE3 implemented a federated model that respected the distinct roles of each tool and built a deliberate interface between them.
Validated BPMN 2.0 process models were published into ABACUS as the single source of truth for business processes. Technical metadata — lineage, quality scores and classifications — was ingested into AXON, enriched with a validated business glossary. The two were then stitched together via common glossary terms, so a programme manager could move seamlessly from a logical process step to the physical data, lineage and quality that underpinned it.
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The result A proactive, sustainable discovery capability that systematically bridges the business-process view and the technical reality of the estate — mitigating the risks of delay, cost and reduced ambition, and making delivery predictable.
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