How to Manage Your Data Efficiently

We are privileged to witness the digital transformation of many companies, mostly because Rivery is a platform often used as the engine to enable this digital transformation.

In 2017, we have worked with some amazing companies from very diverse paths – from one the hottest blockchain startup, to a pioneering digital marketing agency to major international enterprises.

This has given us a fresh perspective to really understand the challenges of today’s CMOs, CIOs, marketing analysts, data engineering & BI teams.

Are Big Data Days Over?

While the buzz over ‘big data’ is somehow fading away, it is a reality that businesses have access to more and better data than ever before.

What’s more, this data comes in all shapes and forms, making it challenging to orchestrate and align a companies data infrastructure and all the processes that surround it to make insights accessible and ready to help make crucial business decisions.

According to Forrester, the IaaS (Insights-as-a-Service) market will double, with 80% of firms relying on insights service providers for some portion of insights capabilities in 2018.

Data comes from internal and external sources – and with this external sources (i.e. advertising platforms, analytics, support, sales) it can be hard to organize them and mould them so they’re all in sync with the KPIs of each business.

After all, every organization has their own metrics and while most third party platforms offer some level of analytics – they’re not always the most relevant.

For example, the default time-frame readily available on a specific sales platform might not be relevant to your organization’s sales cycle. Or the customer segmentation of an analytics platform, might not be as necessary for a company with a different definition of their target user.

This is why one of the biggest challenges for optimizing data management today is the ability to orchestrate and streamline the way data is collected, processed and managed seamlessly. And to a big extent, that’s why we created Rivery.

No Head in the Cloud

The other element that has completely transformed the way in which data is hosted and distributed is the cloud. While for the last five years there has been a craze to move everything to “the cloud”.

Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have been battling to win cloud business as it has become a huge source of revenue for them. However, we have discovered that many users have little awareness on how to optimize cloud usage – often blinded to how the different teams in their organization consume cloud storage, something which in the future will become increasingly important.

Businesses are missing out on significant efficiencies to operate their cloud activities in a leaner, more cost effective way. Just like any other business function, cloud spend should be ROI-driven and optimized which means it’s worth digging deeper into how and how much is used the cloud across the business – and to what extents it’s benefitting the functions it supports.

Running a lean and cost effective operation is paramount – whether it’s the operational infrastructure in the cloud or the physical design and optimization of office space. Being efficient and effective is at the core of any successful business to remain on top of their game.

The difference with the cloud, is that as it plays an increasingly important role in most organizations, the money spent on it will go under more scrutiny – to serve companies, shareholders, and employees in the most efficient way.

Having said that, cloud services help companies become more efficient and implement more technology which in return will make their operation more digital and ultimately better for their customers.

Demystifying Artificial Intelligence

Finally, it’s important to mention AI. It feels like there wasn’t a single startup that didn’t include this term in their pitch in 2017. While Machine Learning was the hottest term in 2016, it feel like last year belonged to AI.

Artificial Intelligence is a reality, but like with every new technology such as blockchain – it’s up to companies to creatively think about how to adopt them and the real test will come in a successful implementation.

I have no doubt that AI is already transforming how we manage data systems, and we’re proudly at the forefront of this massive shift. When we created a data management platform, we knew that the future is heading towards smaller teams where insights are processed automatically and data doesn’t merely react to events but it’s also able to react upon these with action triggered by an organization’s set parameters.

I look forward to seeing more companies in 2018 venturing out to use data in a completely different way – rethinking their perceptions of data as a ‘passive reflection of what has happened’, and moving towards looking at data processes and a living infrastructure that is intelligently designed and programmed to be an active entity.

For example, businesses can now set triggers that are aligned to the performance of specific marketing campaigns or receive email alerts when a set threshold of customer satisfaction is met.

An Exciting Year Ahead

2018 will be a very exciting year, and I look forward to meeting more business and help them solve their toughest data challenges. With our recent addition of Microsoft’s Azure Data Lake, we are proud to be able to help any business, whether they’re using AWS, Google Cloud or Azure. This has made us fully cloud-agnostic.

In addition, due to popular demand, we’ve added two major integrations for mobile-driven companies: Google Play & AppStore. This will help Rivery customers with access to more and better app data.

And here’s the shameless plug… if you need to automate and streamline your data processes in 2018, and you need the tools to enable this digital transformation smoothly and efficiently, get in touch! I’d be delighted to help.

Here’s to a data-driven 2018!