Informatica Perspectives

I assume anyone reading this blog is a firm believer in the value of data, specifically the value it provides to the business. But even though we take that as a matter of faith, it can still be difficult to articulate this notion to others, particularly in ways that don’t sound vague or clichéd.

When you talk in a positive sense about the value your data can drive, it pays to talk about concrete examples like:

• ACH Foods saved $3 million integrating an acquisition by streamlining the process of migrating data from the acquiree.
• GfK, a market research firm, diversifying its product range and reducing errors in the data it delivered to its clients by improving how they managed complex data and data quality.
• Oi, the leading telecom provider in Brazil, being able to introduce an innovative prepaid calling service plan because it was able to integrate data across its CRM, billing and in-house pre-paid systems.
• Electronic Arts, the gaming firm, saving millions in inventory and related costs through better demand forecasting, based on data they integrated across 22 systems.

These are all great examples of data driving business value, but sometimes I find that negative examples can hit home even more. Horror stories about not getting data on time, or finding errors in the data, tend to get a more visceral reaction. There are a bunch of great data quality-related stories at www.doyoutrustyourdata.com that are good for getting attention, and sometimes also a laugh. A couple of my favorites:

• When the Enron meltdown occurred, several leading Wall St. institutions took weeks to figure out their financial exposure to Enron, which was in the billions; in some cases having to revise their public estimates. Why? They couldn’t pull together the data on all the various financial instruments linked to Enron across all their divisions.
• Repeat the story above, but 1000x worse, for the sub-prime meltdown. Data on potential worse-case scenarios was routinely dismissed, and the financial models were all based on skewed data. Alan Greenspan was quoted: “The whole intellectual edifice, however, collapsed in the summer of last year because the data input into the risk management models generally covered only the past two decades — a period of euphoria.”
• Amazon accidentally delisted 57,000 books from its search and sales rankings because they were mistaken categorized as “adult” material.

Is focusing on horror stories a legitimate way to ensure executive attention on a key issue? Or is it scare-mongering? In my book, if the examples are real and they are effective in motivating action, scare away.

Your two cents?

Regardless of how it is framed, the business value of data is a key focus of our upcoming Informatica 9 launch.  Definitely worth checking out.