Published on the 05/05/2023 | Written by Heather Wright
Bringing together data from across systems…
Australian data and analytics consultancy Decision Inc is hoping to solve local businesses data headaches with a new partnership with SnapLogic.
Aiden Heke, Decision Inc Australia CEO, says with digital driving almost every activity, companies are faced with a veritable deluge of customer data.
“However, when it’s scattered across systems at multiple levels of the business, it’s about as useful as a chocolate teapot,” he says.
Heke told iStart that for many clients one of the biggest challenges they face is too much data and understanding which pieces of the data they need to join together to get business value.
“When data is scattered across systems… it’s about as useful as a chocolate teapot,”
“There is a business problem for them understanding what the challenges they need to solve with that, and then there is the technology problems that come along with that as well.
“It’s working through both of those things at the same time and being able to pick and choose what are the right sets of data.”
The emergence of consumer-led or mainstream AI technology adoption is further fuelling the issue.
“What has been amazing about Open AI and ChatGPT is it’s a bit like a Tesla moment for us in our industry – it has suddenly made it ok and taken away the change resistance for something that is so material to all of us,” he says.
But with growing adoption of the technology comes real issues around risk management, privacy and security – something the wider industry is continuing to grapple with as it seeks to belatedly add guardrails.
“And then on top of all those things is the access to digital data sets,” Heke notes.
“It is going to bring other data sources into the business, other opportunities for improvement, that all needs to be considered and makes it challenging.”
Heke says the new partnership with intelligent integration and enterprise automation specialist SnapLogic will enable local businesses to connect disparate data sources and extract, transform and load data between systems via SnapLogic, using Decision Inc to leverage the data to provide analytics and business intelligence services.
“Through this partnership with SnapLogic, our customers will benefit from a complete and up-to-date data integration and analytics solution. This connective tissue between sources will allow them to make sense of their data and use it to drive real results in a simple yet sophisticated way.”
The retail, FMCG, manufacturing, supply chain and logistics sectors will be key targets.
“Through this partnership with SnapLogic, our customers will benefit from a complete and up-to-date data integration and analytics solution. This connective tissue between sources will allow them to make sense of their data and use it to drive real results in a simple yet sophisticated way.”
He cites the example of a retail business using SnapLogic to connect systems such as the online store and point of sale system, enabling them to communicate seamlessly while enabling extraction of data into a common format suitable for analysis.
Last month SnapLogic introduced SnapsGPT, embedding the natural large language model inside their toolset. That means that for some tasks, users will be able to ask a question of the system and have it create the ‘snap’ that links systems together.
“I personally still think high-end technology expertise is going to be needed because it is never as simple as that. But we think SnapLogic is a real winner. I can see it being one of the strongest platform plays within integration very quickly,” Heke says.
He urges companies to start small with their data projects.
“If you try and solve your data quality, governance and management issues across the whole organisation you will literally bury yourself in a hole of money that will get you nowhere,” he says.
He offers three tips for getting data under control and maximising its use:
- Start with the business problem and start small with a business problem that has some repeatability within your organisation and is driven by a business need. Don’t be too ambitious. “And make sure you have strong stakeholder support for the project, because there will be some tough times going backwards and forwards on it.”
- Prepare stakeholders for the outcome of the work that needs to be done. Insight drives action if you are going to be successful so companies need to be ready to embrace change.
- Think about the place you start in so far as building momentum inside the organisation to be able to create that repeatable improvement through the data insight and action loop.
