Securing Leadership Buy-In: the Business Case for a Universal Semantic Layer

Most data leaders already know they need a semantic layer. The problem is getting the executive committee to pay for one.

The technical case is easy. The business case is where projects die: the CFO wants a number, the CEO wants to know why the data catalog you bought two years ago isn't enough, and the board just read that 95% of GenAI initiatives returned nothing.

In this session, Charlotte Ledoux and Henri-François Chadeisson sit down together to build the argument you can actually take upstairs. We'll go through the numbers that move a budget decision, the objections you'll hit, and how to frame a universal semantic layer as an investment with a payback date instead of another infrastructure line item.

You believe in the semantic layer. Your Top Management hasn't yet. This webinar gives data and analytics leaders the business case to secure funding: the real cost of analytical chaos, the ROI numbers from companies already running a universal semantic layer, and how to answer the "why isn't our catalog enough?" Question in the room where the budget gets decided.

What we’ll cover: 

• The cost of doing nothing: what analytical chaos actually spends
• The 3 objections that kill the project, and how to answer each: "we already have a catalog," "this is an IT problem," "prove the ROI first"
• The numbers that move a budget
• How to frame the ask so finance says yes: payback timeline, cost avoidance vs. new spend, and tying the layer to a GenAI use case leadership already wants
• Who needs to be in the room, and the language that works with CEO, CFO and IT
• Live Q&A: bring your hardest internal objection