Future-proof data platform for the Province of North Brabant

The Province of North Brabant is committed to ensuring that every sector and resident can benefit from the opportunities offered by data and digital technologies. These tools are essential for generating valuable insights in key areas such as mobility, nature, nitrogen reduction, and construction. With the right digital infrastructure, the province can extract area-specific intelligence that supports more efficient and effective decision-making—delivering tangible value to both citizens and businesses.

Province of North Brabant

The Province of North Brabant addresses a wide range of societal challenges every day—from the energy transition and housing market to mobility and water quality. This work is carried out in close collaboration with municipalities, businesses, organizations, and residents. From its provincial government headquarters in ’s-Hertogenbosch, approximately 1,500 dedicated employees work to shape and implement policies that enhance the region.

Their shared mission: to create a Brabant that is attractive, accessible, competitive, and sustainable—a province where people can live, work, and enjoy life, both now and in the future.

Data must deliver public value

Data and digitization are strategic priorities for the Province of North Brabant. The aim is clear: ensure that every sector and resident can benefit from the opportunities these technologies offer. The province places high value on this because data holds powerful insights—particularly in areas such as mobility, nature, nitrogen reduction, and construction. With the right tools, the province can extract area-specific insights that form the foundation for more efficient and effective decision-making—benefiting both citizens and businesses.

Currently, the data the province seeks to transform into public value is distributed across various internal policy domains and external partners. So how can these diverse data sources be brought together?

First, a central data platform is essential—one that enables secure, ethical, and transparent data sharing. Second, the right tools are needed—such as dashboards and applications that empower policy officers to translate raw data into actionable, area-specific insights.

Data platform and strategy

To elevate its data capabilities, the Province of North Brabant partnered with Sogeti to advance its existing data platform to a higher level of maturity. By transitioning to a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model built on Databricks, and piloting Microsoft Fabric, the province significantly reduced its management and development overhead. This shift not only lowers operational costs but also accelerates the delivery of data-driven value.

Sogeti developed a future-proof data platform strategy tailored to the province’s needs. This strategic approach empowers the province to innovate sustainably while ensuring continued access to the right technologies and expertise.

Establishing strong data governance

Sogeti supported the Province of North Brabant in restructuring its management organization and strengthening its data governance framework. With stringent regulations such as NIS2 and GDPR in place, the province must ensure that data is handled with the highest standards of transparency, ethics, and care.

As a trusted public institution, the province has a responsibility to its citizens to manage data responsibly. To support this, Sogeti developed a comprehensive data governance and security policy for the data platform. This policy clearly defines:

• Who has access to specific data
• How the data may be used
• What standards must be followed when exchanging data with partners

Further development of the data platform

To guide the continued evolution of the data platform, Sogeti developed a strategic roadmap tailored to the specific needs of the Province of North Brabant. This process began with four Solutioning Workshops, designed to highlight the current (IST) and desired (SOLL) states of the platform. These sessions provided valuable insights into the existing data environment, identified key gaps, and outlined areas for improvement. This foundation enabled a focused and actionable path toward the province’s long-term data goals.

Empowering citizen development

Thanks to the integration of user-friendly digital tools, provincial employees are increasingly empowered to develop their own data products. This shift allows the Province of North Brabant to fully harness the value of its data. After all, no one understands the required insights and applications better than the program teams themselves.

Employees are trained to independently create dashboards, reports, and other data-driven solutions using the “demonstrate, do together, do it yourself” approach. This method gradually builds internal expertise and reduces reliance on external support over time.

A central hub for data exchange

The data platform positions the Province of North Brabant as a central hub for data exchange among chain partners. This role adds significant value by enabling faster, more consistent, and more secure information sharing between public and private stakeholders.

By facilitating data exchange based on shared standards, the province is helping to create a reliable and interoperable data landscape. This alignment enhances policymaking, implementation, and monitoring—accelerating innovation and enabling more effective, data-driven responses to societal challenges such as mobility, sustainability, and quality of life.

Driving smarter, more effective decision-making

With a scalable platform, a flexible team of data specialists, and a structured knowledge transfer process, the Province of North Brabant now has a future-proof solution for extracting value from data. Employees can quickly develop tailored data applications using diverse data sources, enabling more area-specific and cross-thematic decision-making.

The platform also fosters innovation by providing rapid access to reliable insights for a wide range of use cases. Meanwhile, robust data governance ensures that data exchange is secure, efficient, and compliant—eliminating the need to reinvent standards or reconfigure datasets for each new initiative.

Sogeti impact at the Province of Noord-Brabant:

• Focus on the data platform has shifted from management to value creation.
• Reliable data governance and standardized internal and external data exchange.
• More effective, area-specific and cross-thematic decision-making based on internal and external data sources.
• Saving on operational costs by reducing IT complexity.
• Data-driven innovation through rapid availability of combined data sources for various use cases.
• Optimal value from data because policy officers can build data products.
• Future-proof through scalable architecture, flexible layer of data specialists and step-by-step knowledge transfer.
• Partnership in which Sogeti proactively thinks along and the province remains in control of strategic developments.
• Ability to scale up quickly with qualified employees.