New Way Now: Virgin Media O2 puts data at the heart of UK connectivity with Google Cloud

*Featured in this video:* Chandu Bhuman, Senior Manager for Platform Architecture and Engineering, and Vinay Pai, Head of Data Architecture, at Virgin Media O2. *Executive summary:* Virgin Media O2, which unites the UK’s top mobile and media networks, faced a major roadblock on its mission to supercharge the nation’s connectivity: fragmented data platforms that limited agility and innovation. With Google Cloud, Virgin Media O2 embarked on a data transformation journey, building a unified data platform on BigQuery for all its enterprise analytics data and enabling real-time data streaming. Now, Virgin Media O2 has a data engine that runs around the clock, unlocking 24/7 data availability and drastically improving data reliability for decision-making. The results? A 50% boost in time to market, 30% savings in overall costs, and — most importantly — more service choice and better value for over 45 million connections. *Challenge:* To keep the UK connected, Virgin Media O2 needs to put data at the heart of its products and services. However, the company faced significant challenges with trying to gather vital insights from across fragmented legacy data platforms, limiting its ability to innovate, improve, and personalize connectivity services. *Solution:* Before it could revolutionize the telecommunications industry, Virgin Media O2 realized it would first need to transform its data architecture. With Google Cloud, Virgin Media O2 created a unified data platform, migrating all of its enterprise analytics data to BigQuery and transitioning to event-driven streaming to continuously capture and process data in real time. This step was critical in establishing a strong data foundation, empowering Virgin Media O2 to manage and utilize its data more effectively. Instead of waiting for fresh data to process overnight, teams now have accurate, consistent, and up-to-date data at their disposal around the clock, significantly improving the reliability of the data-driving crit