Data Is Your Most Precious Resource

Data is the new oil

While some organizations turn to pre-made data sets, others are unlocking their data through better data preparation practices.

You’ve heard it said before—data is the new oil. It’s very valuable, but just like crude, raw data is mostly unusable until it is refined. Be that as it may, the value of oil keeps dropping while the value of data keeps going up and up. You can no longer ignore the importance of data to business.

Before their closure, Gigaom addressed the growing data gap—while large organizations may have the resources to gather and prepare their own data, the smaller companies often struggle to keep up. One solution for them to consider comes from data markets popping up from companies like CrowdFlower which provide pre-packaged datasets, ready to be dropped into Tableau for analytics. Large enterprises have to collect raw data from multiple business silos and disparate systems. Regardless of whether the business is large or small, unique data from within the organization is far more valuable than generic datasets, leaving many companies asking: How can we efficiently leverage that data?

Data Preparation for All

The task of cleaning data, removing incorrect or incomplete entries, de-duplication, and extracting insights from the flood is a massive undertaking for even the most seasoned data wranglers. For those without the resources to execute such a massive data integration project, there has to be an easier way to get the high-quality data you need.

Progress® Easyl® fills the gap between data collection and business intelligence. Easyl accelerates knowledge and enables faster decision making by providing the data preparation capabilities businesses have been sorely lacking. Like a refinery for your crude data, Easyl is able to connect to multiple sources, merge data sets, and automatically remove duplicate entries and other bad data through the application of customizable templates. By making what was traditionally done by hand into an automatic process, Easyl changes the task of data preparation from weeks into a couple of minutes and just a few clicks. You are then able to use this refined data to quickly build your BI reports, using the analytics tool of choice.

Be Prepared to Manage Big Data

Organizations big and small already know the power of data. Being able to know exactly how your business is working and what your customers are looking for is too valuable to ignore. Even so, taming the torrent of data and squeezing out useful insights continues to be a struggle for companies of all sizes.

The solution to the big data problem will be different for different organizations. Some may gravitate toward data preparation solutions like Easyl, while others will find benefit from one-size-fits-all data markets like CrowdFlower’s initiative. Many will implement a strategy that combines the two into their already very rich data ecosystem. The important thing to understand is the importance of data for decision-making and the options available for getting that data now.

To explore how you can fully exploit your own unique data to make better decisions, start a trial of Easyl today.