Aligning Intelligence at Scale
Decentralizing Decision Intelligence
Align Technology, creator of Invisalign, serves more than 15 million customers globally, offering a fast-growing portfolio of digital orthodontics products. As the company expanded, it faced a significant challenge: it found itself with abundant data, but too few people with access to it. The centralization of data was becoming a bottleneck, hindering agility and innovation.
Despite a robust digital workflow, with intraoral scanners, treatment simulations, and manufacturing automation, the company’s data lived in silos. Clinical, sales, manufacturing, and customer support functions each had their own tools and repositories. This fragmentation slowed decisions and limited innovation. This realization began a transformative journey towards decentralizing data access, aiming to empower teams and enhance patient outcomes.
Sreelakshmi Kolli’s, EVP and Chief Digital Officer at Align, goal was to democratize intelligence without compromising governance or quality. To do that, Kolli led a strategic initiative to decentralize data access across the enterprise. Powered by a composable, AI-optimized architecture, Align unlocked data visibility at scale and enabled faster, smarter decisions at every level of the business.
Where Traditional Models Fall Short
Before the transformation, Align’s data strategy followed a typical enterprise pattern: build centralized lakes, use specialized teams for analysis, and control access through layered approvals. Kolli noted, "In the past, it was almost like, ‘Oh, that data is owned by the Salesforce team or the SAP team or the treatment planning team or the clinical team.’"
But as the business scaled across 100+ countries and added thousands of SKUs, that model faltered. Such fragmentation not only slowed down decision-making, but also limited the potential of data-driven insights. Predictive tools sat unused because the right data wasn’t accessible or visible to the proper teams.
Business users had to request reports or insights, leading to slow decision cycles and company-wide lag. Systems were entirely disconnected, with data in different formats and tools, and only a small group of experts able to query systems directly. This locked insight and access and limited understanding across the organization. Align needed to turn its fragmented data into a living asset that was discoverable, contextual, and trusted across functions and geographies.
Architecting Data Liquidity
Under Kolli’s leadership, Align redesigned its digital stack to emphasize self-service, modularity, and machine learning readiness. Rather than route all insights through a central team, the company created a data marketplace, where curated, governed data products are made available across the enterprise as a shared asset: “Our goal is to make data so pervasive inside Align that it's not just for a data scientist or a small technology team to unlock the potential of it.”
Align implemented a modular, cloud-native architecture that allowed different departments to access data via standardized APIs and semantic layers. One of the key initiatives was implementing AI-powered tools that enhanced both internal processes and customer experiences. For instance, the "Smile View" app allows users to visualize potential treatment outcomes using a simple selfie. Kolli explained, "That's an AI model that takes your selfie [in] real-time and shows you what your smile could look like." Such tools engage customers and streamline treatment planning by providing doctors with AI-generated plans tailored to individual preferences.
Align also prioritized partnerships with startups to stay at the forefront of technological advancements. Kolli highlighted the importance of this approach: "As a technology team, we stay on top of current technology trends and actively engage with the startup community." By fostering an environment of experimentation, Align encouraged teams to innovate without fear of failure, viewing setbacks as learning opportunities.
Rollout followed an agile path, beginning with high-impact use cases in supply chain and customer success before expanding across sales, marketing, and clinical operations. The key to adoption was making insights available through familiar tools like dashboards, mobile apps, and self-service portals.
Data Democratization in Action
The decentralization of data access yielded significant benefits for Align. By empowering business users to run analytics independently, the data science team could focus on more complex challenges, such as product and clinical innovations. This reallocation of resources accelerated the development of new solutions, like Smile View, and improved overall efficiency.
Teams that once worked in parallel began collaborating through shared metrics, cross-functional KPIs, and real-time experimentation, like tailoring treatment journeys and marketing based on predictive behavior and historical patterns or using downstream outcomes (e.g., aligner fit, customer feedback) to refine upstream models in manufacturing and planning. “It's been a cultural transformation as much as it's been a technology one,” Kolli emphasized.
Where Align Goes Next
Align's commitment to innovation and adaptability positioned the company as a leader in digital transformation. By breaking down data silos and fostering a culture of experimentation, Align demonstrated the profound impact of decentralizing data access on organizational success. By viewing data as a shared resource and encouraging cross-functional collaboration, companies can position themselves for sustained success in an increasingly digital landscape.
The key takeaway is clear: democratizing data access can unlock untapped potential, drive innovation, and enhance customer experiences. “For us, technology’s like the central nervous system of the company,” Koli says. In a field where precision is non-negotiable, distributed intelligence gives Align the edge.