TRILLIUM SOFTWARE INSIGHTS

Data Governance – Growing and Expanding

By Jim Orr, Director, Enterprise Data Strategy, Harte-Hanks Trillium Software

By all indications, data governance continues to gain momentum and compete for top billing in the industry. The recent MDM Conference in San Francisco and the Data Governance Conference in San Diego are good barometers for this. In both cases, conference attendance was up and the topic of data governance was splashed everywhere.

While I found much of the messaging and presentations around data governance to be siloed and somewhat confusing, I can see where the industry is beginning to more clearly define this discipline at an administrative, technical, business, and tactical layer.

I also found companies to be more specific as to why they attended these events which is a sign that this discipline is maturing. In other words, it was less of a curiosity as in past years and more about how do I go about actually making this a reality within my organization.

Of interest was the number of vendors that are getting on board and touting a solution for data governance. Albeit, some are just jumping on the train with the same technologies others have announced some creative solutions. One that caught my eye was the data governance work flow management tool that Kalido unveiled at the Data Governance Conference. Certainly not a be-all end-all to data governance, it does begin to address the tactical aspects of work flow management.

I also heard some interesting back room dialogue from some of our industry leaders suggesting that the term data governance does not adequately describe this discipline. This is music to my ears! As I mentioned before here and elsewhere, data governance is really about Information Asset Management. It just happens to have various components to it, including the strategic and tactical management of data.

Does this ring true with you and your experiences?

The Language of Data Quality

 By Len Dubois, Sr. Vice President, Marketing & Sales Support, Harte Hanks Trillium Software

The language of data quality is interesting, isn't it?  To truly interpret or understand it, it really depends on whom you are talking to and what their specific goals are for their unique business challenges.  During one of our most recent regional user conferences in Boston, it was really evident that there are distinct ways to refer to the challenges and enormous business benefits that improved data quality can bring to an organization. 

When you listen to IT professionals, they speak in terms of formats, structured and unstructured data types, metadata, etc.  Listen closely though, and they talk about challenges in terms of consolidating different data sources, completeness and accuracy of records, and ability to discover anomalies – both known and unknown.

While Data Stewards on the other hand refer to understanding business process break down, data governance, application integration and reusability of data quality processes in both upstream and downstream systems. 

Both of these are clear examples of how different data quality solutions and services users talk, but in most cases, and they’re referring to similar data quality pain points, and you can hear the features of their current tools and offerings coming through the vernacular.

On the other hand, when you listen to the business buyers of data quality solutions, they speak a completely different language.  I heard them speak in the following terms; "We purchased a solution to reduce our procurement cost across the organization by 3%, you guys at Trillium Software helped me better understand who our distributors are, and what we purchase from them." 

Also from an insurance executive said, "I wanted to better understand how many claims were being submitted for the same incident and which of our customers had multiple policies within our organization.  From a shipping executive, "We are being charged enormous fees from importers and exporters due to incorrect or incomplete shipping information on containers, how do I drastically reduce or eliminate those fees?  Another executive stated, "By better understanding the information assets of an intended acquired company we were able to reduce the acquisition price by 33%.” 

Lastly, an automotive executive opined, "My companies reputation is on the line every time an automobile leaves a distributor.  One of our most critical business processes is to ensure we know when a vehicle is returned for a warranted repair.  It is at that point when a customer is most vulnerable, so understanding exactly who the customer is, which vehicle, which part, what distributor and how long the vehicle was out of use is vital for our business.  Closing the gap on those data "unknowns" is the key for our success."

Now you may ask, aren't all of these people – the IT folks, Data Stewards and executives – the "buyers" of data quality solutions?  Yes and no. 

At the end of the day, the person putting their signature on the contract has a vested interest in, and an enormous responsibility for, seeing that the solution they are purchasing meets not only the needs of the IT professional who is primarily worried about the bits and bytes, the Data Steward attempting to bring line of business and IT professionals together in a collaborative way, and the business buyers who run campaigns and business processes.  The needs of all these buyers must be taken into account to ensure the success of a project, as well as ensuring they are solving a business challenge or need for the organization.

It is therefore essential that my staff and I understand and better communicate the benefits, as well as the challenges each buyer faces. 

What type of buyer are you?  What “language” do you speak and what are your most pressing business needs that can be addressed by improved data integrity?

From Location Intelligence to Business Intelligence

By Ed Wrazen, Vice President, Product Marketing, Harte-Hanks Trillium Software

In my last blog on geocoding, I spoke about the increasing adoption of geocodes in a wide variety of consumer and business applications.  I mentioned how geocoding helps to enhance “Location Intelligence,” so, thought it would make sense to talk a little more about what I mean by Location Intelligence and why it’s increasingly becoming important.  

Check out the Wikipedia definition of Location Intelligence.  It is defined as “the capacity to organize and understand complex phenomena through the use of geographic relationships inherent in all information. By combining geographic- and location-related data with other business data, organizations can gain critical insights, make better decisions and optimize important processes and applications, and streamline business processes and customer relationships.”

I like this definition a lot.  It says so much about the value of information and how it can be applied with geographical elements, namely geocodes, to enhance business value and decision-making. With better insight into location relevant information, organizations can identify opportunities which otherwise may not be obvious.  There are many industry examples in which location intelligence is important.

For Insurance risk management, Insurers need to know precisely where properties are located in proximity to a flood zone or crime area or other potential catastrophe-prone region, or otherwise, suffer revenue and underwriting consequences.  In the retail industry, understanding property and population densities and demographics within commuting distances will help determine new store locations which could improve customer service and experiences.   Telecommunication suppliers also need location data to optimize cell mast positioning and maximum network coverage. 

We are also likely to see Location Intelligence play more of a role in Business Intelligence. As organizations mine and analyze their data to enable them to make better, more-informed decisions, visualization and mapping tools incorporating location data will increasingly be used. This will help identify location-specific market and business opportunities, and localized marketing and sales strategies.

Is your organization using geocoding and location intelligence in some innovative way to drive business efficiencies and improvements?  Send along your company success stories around geocoding.

Customers Telling Us Data Quality Impacts Business Processes

By Len Dubois, Sr. Vice President, Marketing & Sales Support, Harte Hanks Trillium Software

I spent all of last week with existing customers and interested prospects at our Trillium Software Regional User Conferences in St Louis and Columbus, OH. It’s always refreshing (and informative) to hear about the anecdotes and practical sides of data management implementations that are successful, as well as the ones that face challenges.

A common thread running through their experiences is the need to pull senior-level executives into their data quality world in order to better define how information quality impacts business processes.  Business processes can be simplistic – the need to identify when an insurance claim has been submitted on more than one occasion for the same incident. Or, they can be more complex issues like determining which systems are authoritative and what processes must be implemented during the lifecycle of master data entities.

More successful organizations, and those further down the information management maturity scale, fully understand that aligning data quality or information quality practices to definable business processes provides the best chance of improving their business results most quickly. Better stated, when you fully define how poor data quality manifests itself within a business process, you truly get the attention of those whose jobs are evaluated based on the revenue generated from those same strategic business processes. Boy, that will open some eyes, won’t it?  

These business process optimization challenges are the types of engagements that our customers have partnered with Trillium Software to help them solve and it is enormously rewarding to know that they trust our experience and expertise as well as our technology to make them successful. 

I am looking forward to our next set of customer conferences in Boston and Philadelphia to hear what our clients have to say. Will you be in Boston on June 15 or Philly on June 17? Come by and we can talk.