Data Integration: Strategic Approach and Plan Needed

15 February 2022

Planning to digitally transform your business? You need a data integration strategy. 

By Kompass International

15 February 2022

Start moving on with the advice of Julie Hunt, an independent IT consultant: ‘A business that strives forward, and its data need to cover the whole new world that is constantly changing. This world of smart data is built on advanced approaches to data integration. Together, such approaches are combined into the concept of ‘modern data integration’. Need the correct information to underpin advanced analytics processes, to underpin a unified vision of customers? Data integration should be a strategic function that meets business objectives’.

Data integration doesn’t belong to tactical tasks

Tech guys used to talk about this for a very long time, but few have listened to them before. But even now, most companies do not consider data integration as a strategic direction for the company. Most often, it falls into the basket of ‘tactical technology’.

Perfect Data – At the Heart of Your Solutions

Data should always be treated strategically: both those that you have and those that you do not. The ability to bring data together at the right time gives businesses the ability to make decisions based on almost ideal data.

For example, an exporter can create an automatic system for monitoring new importers, depending on their products and location. Alternatively, a manufacturer may create a database of potential buyers in order to update, expand and clean the data regularly and expeditiously.

How to organize this process? No need to reinvent a wheel – the data integration service from Kompass will allow you to plan and start the process of harmonizing data precisely in accordance with your tasks.

The system operates on hundreds of data streams that come from internal and external sources. Companies can also benefit from data analysis with machine learning or predictive analytics. All this is a part of modern data science, which will not be able to yield benefits without data integration.

Data integration has been used for a long time, but most enterprises have yet to learn how to use it the proper way. In fact, those who have learned to do this effectively are already leading the market.

“Natural selection” based on data integration efficiency

The end result will be a “natural selection” of companies. It will award those who understand the strategic value of data integration and effectively integrate it into an overall IT strategy. It takes time, money and technology. But it’s worth it – ROI (return on investment) from these efforts makes in average more than 200%.

Kompass is the top worldwide B2B data provider that could guide you according to your Data integration strategy.

No company would escape data integration. Sooner or later, accidentally or not, everyone will have to face the value of data integration. More often than not, this value becomes evident at the planning phase when it appears that data integration is profitable.

Why does a successful IoT strategy require data integration?

Interest to IoT grows as more data are collected from different devices. According to a study by the World Institute of McKinsey, ‘by 2025, the impact of the Internet of Things on the international economy could reach $11.1 trillion’.

To catch your attention, this assessment is quite enough. But in order for the forecast to be realized, much more needs to be done. The report states: ‘At the same time, interviewed company executives recognize that they lack an accurate vision of IoT specific business opportunities. And this despite the fact that the applications that are currently being developed have wide opportunities, the potential impact on the markets (consumers, industrial segments and healthcare) can be very large, and the trend in the use of technology is only emerging’.

The fact that we can collect huge amounts of data from thousands of devices is amazing in itself. However, many companies now find it difficult to understand what to do with this information. Power your performance with data analysis, insight and agility with Kompass Data Consulting services, aiming to make the right decisions and build the best plan to reach your goals.

Companies make similar data integration errors

Data synchronization between storage systems and applications has been in use for many years. Most companies have already learned to do this successfully. But there are still many who continue to make serious errors when integrating data.

First data integration error: security issues not taken into account

When working with data, security must be systematic in everything you do. When data are integrated, their protection starts at the beginning of the project, when you determine where to and where from the data will be moved. Further on the role of security is retained when determining how information will be transformed and tested. At all stages of the data integration project, information protection should be a thoughtful process, rather than being added postfactum, as is often the case.

Many of those involved in data integration encrypt them “on the fly”, either when entering the system or already being stored in it. Few apply both approaches. This leads to the fact that the data are unprotected either when being replaced, or during the storage. This needs to be monitored. Also do not forget about user identification management, security key management, log entries. This needs to be addressed when planning a data integration solution, testing it, and using it.

Second data integration error: Metadata problems not predefined

Data integration will be much easier if you understand what data you are integrating. To better understand data you need the help of their metadata. That is why it is so important to control them.

Not only will you need the most obvious metadata (data format, owner, integrity, and more). We also need metadata about compliance, Data Governance, security, and the more complex concepts we have to deal with right now. Monitoring all metadata will increase the chances that the data integration project will succeed. In fact, with metadata, you can avoid the wrong integration of data and provide the right level of information security.

Third data integration error: wrong technology selection

There is no need to focus on popular trends when choosing a technology for data integration. This is a very common mistake. Project managers are quite inclined to choose technologies for themselves based on their understanding of what is now popular.

As a result, the company is implementing several heterogeneous data integration tools at the same time. In such a situation, everything will become very complicated, costs and risks will increase. In addition, you will have to deal with overstaffing, employing experts with different competencies to work with these heterogeneous technologies. The disadvantages of such a scenario are obvious. Errors occur in almost all data integration projects. Many of them are very difficult to avoid. But the ones that we listed can be avoided relatively easily.

With a seamless and smart data integration and processing plan you can improve your sales performance by better engaging your customers and increase your business revenues. By combining your data with data of Kompass, you will easily build up a refreshed and enriched database of key information.

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