Posts about Data Transparency

Increasing the value of your data is easy with master data management

Last year was a year of tremendous change for businesses and consumers, as they adjusted to the realities of life during a pandemic. Many consumers turned to apps to track diet, fitness and other personal goals with incredible detail, accuracy and consistency, often connecting them to wearable technology that captures data automatically (e.g., heart rate or steps taken).

Trustworthy, transparent data has never been more essential to business success than right here, right now

A healthy, well-run democracy is characterized by a willingness among its leaders to find common ground they can stand on in order to create a better future for its citizens. Despite the fact they often have different opinions on what actions need to be taken, experienced politicians know they can only succeed through collaboration. They also know success depends on being able to agree on some basic assumptions about what the facts are, and what they are not. It is otherwise impossible to make sustainable progress in a democracy.

Lessons learned and digital wins provide confidence for retail success this year

Over 20,000 leaders from retailers and brands convened this year for NRF’s Big Show. But for the first time in 110 years, it was completely virtual. Despite the challenges, NRF came through just as retail did in 2020 by innovating and pivoting to create an excellent experience. There were more than 130 sessions by 330 speakers from over 3,500 participating companies.

Creating value for CPG brands in 2021 starts with optimizing the value of data

The CPG space experiences significant change every year, but for manufacturers of consumer packaged goods, 2020 was one for the record books. At this time last year, industry experts already predicted big changes were coming. Then came the global pandemic, causing the market to shift at an even faster pace. For brands that had taken steps to anticipate and prep for evolving trends and opportunities, the journey was tough but navigable. For others, there were difficult, unexpected challenges.

According to Gartner¹, "Seven out of 10 boards of directors responded to the COVID-19 crisis by accelerating digital business initiatives." Commentary from recently released 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Master Data Management (MDM) Solutions¹ supports this fact, concluding that "The MDM market continues to evolve and thrive as organizations seek to benefit from the business agility afforded by mastering their most critical data, particularly in times of change." You might be interested in reading the full report, of course. More on that later in this blog, or click here if you can't wait.

As manufacturers look back at 2020, they will reflect on the challenges, pivots, wins and new learnings. While many companies accelerated well designed solutions and employed them with success, others created stopgaps that were put in place rapidly to expand into new channels, launch new products and gain digital shelf distribution in new retail customers.

A primary growth vector on the mind of many CIOs today are mergers and acquisitions. And many of these CIOs are in charge of managing a host of internal systems that share data. Establishing a single source of truth that can unite these systems in near real-time, so that operations can run seamlessly across old and new business units alike, is a challenge all of these CIOs face.

Master data management (MDM) enables telecom providers and CSPs to gain control of their data and leverage it for new business opportunities.

Telecom operators, telecom equipment manufacturers and digital communications service providers (CSPs) are looking into a large untapped business potential with a 5G, edge-connected world allowing to address new types of subscribers in new ways. The telecom industry, challenged by competition and legislation, has a unique opportunity to leverage new technologies, such as AI, and develop new business models, renew their offerings and become more efficient.

Financial services institutions, such as banks and insurance companies, rely on MDM-enabled transparency of their customer master data and product master data to capitalise on a number of industry trends, including:

Master data management (MDM) plays a critical role in ensuring data transparency. MDM therefore enables you to leverage the customer and product master data – that you already have – to address and drive revenue from these current trends in the financial services industry.

Synthetic data is the test data that makes your business operations run smoothly; and if those operations are automated with AI, it's essential to use master data management (MDM) to make sure your decisions are unbiased.

Data generates data which in turn generates more data. How do we know if what is being produced is fit for purpose? What if a bot, designed to help us to make an informed investment decision or simply provide us with the best answer to our customer services question, gets it wrong?

Obviously, testing all the different corners of solution sets is important. As AI takes a more dominant role in automating decision processes, it becomes essential to make sure MLOps - enabled by MDM - is working from good data that is explainable (XAI) and free from bias.