Your business relies on data to operate, market your products and services, and make informed decisions. But if the data you’re using isn’t accessible, accurate or relevant to your business goals and objectives, you lose control over your business decisions. This is why managing data is an essential part of any company, big or small.
In the past, businesses would collect and analyze data using their own software platforms. This often led to silos of incompatible data and inaccurate findings. Data management is the process of unifying the data of a business to provide consistent access, delivery and governance to meet the business requirements. It includes a range of techniques and tools, such as master data management, virtualization data catalogs, self-service preparation, wrangling of data and more.
A successful strategy for managing data must also find an appropriate balance between security and the ease of access to data that your employees require for their job. This means implementing role-based permissions to make it easy for users to access the information they need without compromising the safety of your entire data stock. It is also important to use technology that can automatically eliminate mistakes or incorrect data entries from your data sets. For instance the Data Quality Service and an automated process for identifying and correcting duplications.
Furthermore, your data management process must be able to change with you and your business. Consider a DataOps strategy, which blends DevOps, Agile software development and lean manufacturing principles. This can help you build and update data pipelines more quickly, and improve collaboration between teams and users.
>Modern business integration goes far more than simply connecting disparate systems. It’s about coordinating the right technology and data to create efficient, better processes that meet your business’s requirements and growth goals. It’s about making the most of your digital assets and giving your business a competitive advantage.
Many mid-sized, small and enterprise-level companies have IT systems that are a patchwork of software applications designed for specific tasks, that aren’t able to communicate with each other. This is particularly in the case of companies that use accounting software, supply chain management and inventory tracking programs that each have their own set tasks. This can lead to a lot duplicate data in several systems that are no longer able to communicate with one another.
This is why companies must use business integration technologies and tools to ensure that data exchange with trading partners is safe and secure. These tools must be compatible with an array of communications protocols and formats required by different trading partners.
The most effective business-to-business (B2B) integration solutions can help businesses streamline EDI and data flows between multiple systems and put them into a single platform with transparency and governance features that help manage costs. Businesses can gain an competitive advantage by improving the data quality and visibility of their supply chain across their trading partners. This is the reason why business integration is no longer only about enabling B2B communications, it’s about providing a total trading partner enablement experience that delivers quantifiable outcomes that are geared towards the bottom line.
