Analytics, and now AI, start getting into trouble when we don’t have data ready to be consumed in a data product format."
Alessandra de Almeida, Executive Director for Data Management and Governance
Companies are pouring billions into cloud data platforms and AI initiatives, but 95% have yet to see an impact on their bottom line. What gives?
The problem is that many organizations are missing the mark at the most fundamental level: giving people timely, trusted access to the data they need. According to the 2025 State of Data Security Report:
- 64% of data leaders say they face significant challenges providing secure and timely access to data
- 62% say governance processes slow down the time it takes to access data
This friction doesn’t just frustrate teams — it impacts ROI, delays innovation, and can even chip away at revenue.
The TL;DR: Frictionless access is no longer optional — it’s a mandate.
In this blog, we’ll look at how Merck’s frictionless access philosophy accelerated access and increased data utilization, preparing them to scale with control in an AI-driven future.
What causes friction in data access workflows?
Data access friction may seem like an unusual concept, but it comes in familiar forms:
- Weeks-long approval cycles where access requests move through layers of manual review.
- Siloed data catalogs that complicate data discovery and collaboration.
- Ticketing bottlenecks that bury IT teams in tedious and repetitive governance tasks.
The impact is measurable. Nearly a third of data professionals wait a week or more for access, and 31% of organizations have missed internal goals because of delays, with 30% losing revenue.
Slower analytics isn’t the only symptom of data access challenges. An inability to effectively adopt AI systems and applications is also at risk.
Merck’s vision for frictionless data access
For Merck, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, data is a lifeline. Without fast, compliant data provisioning, its research and development, sustainability, and manufacturing initiatives would stall – compromising revenue and more importantly, compromising patient and public health outcomes.
As Merck confronted its own data access challenges – silos, lengthy approvals, lack of ready-to-use data, and the pressure to meet regulatory requirements – its data leadership team had a realization:
To break down barriers and gain buy-in, they needed to flip the script on data governance.
So rather than treating governance as a set of barriers or boxes to check, they repositioned it as “data enablement.”
This principle guided the launch of Merck’s Enterprise Data Enablement (EDE) program, anchored by a global data marketplace. Its mission statement was simple but transformative: frictionless access to data.
How to achieve frictionless data access
To successfully operationalize Merck’s EDE and its internal data marketplace, Merck took intentional steps with a long-term strategy in mind. Working with EY and Immuta, Merck built its marketplace on four key foundations:
1. Data as a product
Merck moved away from static data hubs and embraced curated, purpose-built assets. Each data product came with defined ownership, metadata, and policies, which improved discoverability and utilization.
2. Trust at scale
In a highly regulated industry like pharmaceuticals, confidence is as important as control. Automated masking, blinding, and domain-based policies – defined by those closest to the data – provided control and peace of mind that data was secure and compliant.
3. Consumer-grade experience
Workflows were designed for three personas: data producers, consumers, and governors. Typically these groups each operate independently, which can be inefficient and contribute to silos. As a result, their platform felt less like a compliance system and more like a one-stop shop where all personas could collaborate seamlessly.
4. Change management
Merck invested in enterprise-wide adoption from day one, with quarterly cross-functional workshops, hands-on support, and even analogies to a “mall” where product owners restock their storefronts for consumers.
These building blocks covered both the technical and cultural aspects of change management, shifting Merck toward frictionless access without leaving any systems, people, or processes behind.
The implication of frictionless access is how you stitch access together with data products and lineage to make it real.”
Kevin Barboza, Partner of Technology Consulting
How does frictionless data access impact the bottom line?
Enterprises often struggle to prove the ROI of data governance or provisioning efforts. But Merck’s results speak for themselves:
- Scaled from 100 data products in year one to nearly 800 in year three.
- Grew from 20 data users in year one to more than 3,000 today.
- Accelerated data access from weeks or months to now happening overnight — or faster.
But perhaps most importantly, Merck’s employees began to champion the marketplace. At a recent IT Town Hall, it wasn’t the data team presenting the value of the platform — it was business leaders.
The numbers show success, but when your business counterparts stand up and explain the value themselves, that’s the real transformation.”
Alessandra de Almeida, Executive Director for Data Management and Governance
How to enable frictionless data access for AI
Merck is already looking ahead, with plans to extend beyond structured data into AI agents, APIs, and unstructured data. This is an acknowledgement that tomorrow’s data consumers aren’t just humans — they’re autonomous systems.
This shift is timely: 55% of data leaders say their strategies aren’t keeping up with AI, and 46% report facing difficulties integrating AI into existing systems. Without frictionless access, enterprises will remain stuck in manual process loops, unable to keep pace with agentic systems that operate at machine speed.
Making the shift to frictionless data access
The lesson from Merck’s journey is clear: frictionless data access is not just a technology project. It’s a cultural, operational, and strategic shift that can transform bottom-line results.
Merck turned a vision into measurable outcomes by:
- Reframing governance as enablement
- Embedding trust into every layer
- Focusing relentlessly on user experience
The question for other enterprises is simple: Are you still stuck in manual ticketing systems, or are you building toward frictionless access?
Those that embrace the latter will be poised to achieve more, faster and more reliably, with their data – and truly unlock the value of cloud analytics and AI.
Dive in deeper.
Start putting frictionless data access to work.
