Informatica Perspectives

A few years back, Thomas Friedman wrote a best-seller, The World is Flat. He spoke about how the world is becoming increasingly interconnected, specifically in business. Have you recently wondered just how quickly this notion of globalization is spreading? If you’ve been watching the 2008 Summer Olympics, you may come to the conclusion that globalization is occurring at a rate even faster than Friedman had predicted.

Like many others across the globe, I have been watching the Beijing games with great interest. In the past, much of the interest was generated by the anticipation of Team USA athletes winning Olympic medals. This year was no different in that regard. However, I was quite surprised at the level of cross-national participation. Former Major Leaguer, Jim LeFevre, coaches China’s Olympic baseball team. Team USA’s women’s volleyball team is coached by Jenny Ping, a former member of the 1984 gold medal Chinese national team. US gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi is originally from Eastern Europe and started his career as the coach for the Romanian team. Swimmers and divers from Brazil, Australia and other nations train year round at facilities in the United States. While watching Olympic basketball, I learned that NBA superstar Kobe Bryant is as popular in China as Yao Ming. As a huge fan of Kobe myself, even I was surprised to learn that Kobe’s jersey easily outsells Yao’s in China.

As a result of this globalization in sports, I believe the level of athletic competition has increased significantly. Certainly, a similar effect is being felt in business – globalization is driving much greater competition. It’s also opening up much broader markets – the NBA has an estimated 400 million fans in China. What an opportunity to merchandise Kobe Bryant jerseys! The question now becomes, “Does the NBA have the infrastructure to manage customer data for hundreds of millions of Chinese?” In general, are businesses ready for the sheer volume of data due to globalization? Are businesses ready to perform matching and de-duplication on data in multiple languages?

Ready or not, globalization is upon us. At Informatica, we ensure our customers are ready for globalization by having the right data integration and data quality infrastructure. Just three months ago, we announced our acquisition of Identity Systems. Among other things, the technology from Identity Systems is unsurpassed in matching. It is the only offering in the world that enables customers to match across languages. Originally developed to support government intelligence and border security applications, this technology now addresses a critical need by every business participating in the global economy. Other technology companies are announcing their own plans on how they might deliver support for multi-lingual data. The choice of technology is critical. Just as in the Olympics, the level of competition in business is intensifying and the difference between success and failure may come down to the level of preparedness. Do you feel businesses are ready (from a technology infrastructure perspective) to seize the opportunities brought about by globalization? Please feel free to comment and post your thoughts.