March 17, 2023 How Banks Can Use Analytics to Stay Out of the Headlines Financial institutions are making headlines around the world. There’s no shortage of press coverage on the recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in New York, and there seem to be mounting fears about the overall health of the banking industry. While it is too early to know how these failures will… Read More
February 23, 2023 Embracing Customer Profiling and Data Management Defining exceptional service Organizations always aim to give their customers the best experiences. There are several interpretations of what constitutes good and excellent service, and sometimes these terms are used interchangeably. However, many companies fail to achieve exceptional service because they do not understand their customers. Delivering any level of service requires that we… Read More
January 26, 2023 Three Steps to Better Data Management in 2023 Data management is a vital part of every modern organization. The best businesses today are using their data to inform business strategy, improve customer interactions and ultimately benefit the bottom line. So how can you improve your company’s data management system to reap maximum benefits in the new year? Let’s look at three tips… Read More
January 24, 2023 Building a Data Management Tech Stack for Tomorrow, Today An effective data management tech stack is essential to the health and success of any business, regardless of industry. Today, data is generated at faster rates and higher volumes than ever before, so businesses need systems that are unified and agile in order to keep up. As businesses try to keep up with the… Read More
January 12, 2023 Three Critical Best Practices for Utilizing Customer-Centric Data Today’s customers have high expectations when it comes to customer experience and making purchasing decisions. Consumers are looking for high-quality shopping experiences, both online and in-store. They expect companies to provide a clear shopping interface, visually appealing websites and store fronts, easy access to customer support, and simple checkout processes when interacting with brands.… Read More
January 10, 2023 Prioritizing Data Protection for Data Managers Today’s data managers face numerous data-related obstacles on a regular basis – a surge in the pace of digital transformation, datasets growing increasingly more complex, and the proliferation of data by volume, just to name a few. However, one issue that is quickly surging up the priority list is the protection of data within… Read More
December 22, 2022 Advantages of Implementing a Cloud Data Platform A current data explosion is being fueled by cheaper data storage and advanced analytics technologies. However, a difficult task still remains: how do we aggregate that data into a single place where you can easily analyze it? Teams struggle to access accurate, consistent data from the multiple analytics and extract, transform, load process (ETL)… Read More
November 21, 2022 Boosting CX through IoT and Edge Computing While not a new concept, edge computing is gaining steam, with more businesses embracing this technology at a breakneck pace. A recent Gartner report found that in 2022 alone, enterprises will create and process over 50% of the data they generate at the edge, outside the traditional data center or cloud infrastructure. This number… Read More
November 16, 2022 The Relationship of Customer Experience and Cloud Data Integration, Explained With a myriad of customer experience (CX) tools available today, enterprises are flooded with options when it comes to the services they use to interact with customers. The challenge for businesses is sifting through the many data silos that these tools create. While CX tools are helpful for efficiency, they can create organizational blind… Read More
October 27, 2022 Digital Transformation is a Journey, not a Destination Enterprises have had to adjust their business strategies to account for the rapid pace of change and transformation of the last few years. Factors such as technological innovation, decentralized work, and data volume have triggered an acceleration of digital transformation (DX) plans. For many, the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns also sped up the… Read More
October 19, 2022 Personalization’s Role is Key to Success in the Customer Experience (CX) Game A recent McKinsey study found that over 70% of consumers expect a personalized interaction with the brands they engage with, and 76% have said they’re frustrated when this doesn’t take place. This represents a razor-thin edge for businesses, who can risk losing those frustrated customers to direct competitors, if their personalization efforts aren’t met.… Read More
October 13, 2022 Are You Getting the Most Out of Your Healthcare Data Platform? Healthcare organizations now require insights that are only possible to gain by bringing together diverse and disparate clinical, financial, and operational data from across the organization, as well as outside it. Without access to these insights, improvements in outcomes and operational efficiencies that value-based care models promise to deliver will be harder and more… Read More
September 26, 2022 How to Get More Out of your Data Integration Strategy Conceptually, data integration sounds like a simple task: taking data from multiple sources and combining them to help inform business decision-making. This idea has existed since enterprises have been using datasets. However, as data continues exploding in both volume and complexity, enterprises can no longer rely on manual integration processes. Instead, they must use… Read More
September 15, 2022 The Value of a 360-Degree Customer View Embracing changes in customer demands is an essential quality of a forward-thinking enterprise. Customer demands are always evolving, and the past few years have turned consumer behavior on its head, making agility the biggest competitive differentiator. So how are companies supposed to keep up with customer preferences? Determining what behavior will become long-term shifts… Read More
September 13, 2022 Reflecting on the Customer Data Analytics Tactics of 2022 and Planning for the Future Customer relationship managers have the difficult task of knowing where customers are in their lifecycle and knowing exactly what their shifting needs are. With the first half of this year in the rearview mirror, now is an important time to take stock of customer data analytics priorities, and how far we’ve come since the… Read More
September 8, 2022 The State of Data Security Management in 2022 With the current threat landscape, securing information is a high priority for any business with a digital footprint. Cybersecurity threats like ransomware, spyware, phishing, and other malware attacks have become daily occurrences and are increasingly becoming more sophisticated, targeting the lifeblood of any business – its data. The security of the enterprise is incumbent… Read More
September 6, 2022 Scalability is All About Getting a Smart Start Scalability is for the most part, a peek into the future. That’s why organizations often bring it up when discussing growth and expansion opportunities - whether it’s scaling up operations to keep pace with increased customer demand or adapting to a new industry-disrupting technology. Scalability is particularly important to business leaders right now, as… Read More
September 1, 2022 Power Up the Enterprise with Data – ‘Gas’ for your SaaS The faster an organization can innovate and scale its technology to adapt to changing market conditions and economic uncertainty, the better-positioned it will be as a market leader. Data insights fuel organizations but adding that “gas” to your organization’s SaaS is easier said than done. Be it analyzing customer data, running and maintaining a… Read More
August 23, 2022 Holistic Data Sources and the Art of Optimizing Marketing Budgets to Optimize Your ROI In the current economy where businesses are entrenched in a hyper-personalized world, it is more important than ever to ensure your marketing dollars are spent on realizing value for your business. Businesses are investing heavily in personalized content strategies to meet the needs of their customers at each stage of the customer lifecycle. But… Read More
August 16, 2022 How to Create a Perfectly Tailored Customer Experience eCommerce is a competitive field. Businesses are living in an era of hyper-personalization and omnichannel engagement, constantly vying for limited customer attention in a saturated market. As a result, optimizing marketing campaigns and driving qualified sales leads continues to be a challenge. Having insight into each individual’s unique preferences, buying behavior, and expressed sentiment… Read More
August 2, 2022 How Retailers can Keep Pace Alongside Dynamic Customers The rapid pace of change and acceleration of digital transformation brought on by the pandemic isn’t news anymore; hybrid working environments and limits to in-person commerce forced businesses across diverse sectors to modernize the way they work, and their tech stacks to keep up with demand. However, one side effect of this rapid pace… Read More
July 27, 2022 Breaking Down Data Silos Fuels Faster Innovation When business teams talk about “silos,” they’re usually referring to organizational constructs, bemoaning the presence of business teams that keep to themselves. Siloed teams can unintentionally (or intentionally) hoard information and business insights like precious grain in tall farm towers, not feeding the rest of the company. And sometimes in extreme cases, outside stakeholders… Read More
June 13, 2022 Why a DBA Will Find Going to the Cloud to Their Advantage The cloud is everywhere. Steady pre-pandemic growth transitioned into massive uptake over the last two years, and according to research firm Gartner the market shows no signs of slowing—by the end of 2022, spending on public cloud services is set to reach almost $500 billion worldwide. The challenge? Not all IT professionals are convinced… Read More
June 3, 2022 Technical Trifecta: The Future of Data Professionals Data-driven roles are in demand. According to research firm Deloitte, the number of postings for positions in data science, data engineering, machine learning (ML), and visualization now surpasses those for more familiar skill sets such as customer service, marketing, and public relations (PR). For database administrators (DBAs), business technologists, and data engineers, this increasing… Read More
February 25, 2022 5 Uses Cases for Hybrid Cloud Data Management With the rise of cloud computing, many organizations are opting to use a hybrid approach to their data management. Even though many companies still rely on on-premises storage, the benefits of having cloud storage as a backup or disaster recovery plan can be significant. This post will give you five of the most popular… Read More
November 29, 2021 Developing your Data DNA In a world where everything is changing too quickly, the evolution towards agile, interoperable data services is a welcome change. Data is now able to be delivered as a service, without the need for costly investments in data centers and the resources needed to manage them. As more companies embrace the cloud, data integration… Read More
September 30, 2021 DataOps: How to Turn Data into Actionable Insights Enterprises have struggled to collaborate well around their data, which can impact everything from digital transformation to advanced concepts like AI and ML. DataOps is not without challenges; building, managing, and scaling data pipelines requires careful thought around reusability, portability across infrastructure and applications, and long term maintenance and governance. And these are just… Read More
September 25, 2021 Customer Analytics: How to Measure a Customer’s Journey Customer Analytics Overview: A true 360-degree view of a customer can’t be sourced exclusively from internal data let alone from a single system or department. Organizations trying to correlate customer interactions, transaction history, and behaviors to improve customer acquisition ROI and retention struggle to aggregate and analyze data and signals across operational, social engagement, customer… Read More
August 13, 2021 Data Migration: A Roadmap To Success Organizations initiate data migration projects for several reasons. They might need to overhaul an entire system, upgrade databases, establish a new data warehouse, support a cloud migration roadmap, or merge new data from an acquisition or other source. Data migration is also necessary when deploying another system that resides next to incumbent applications. Regardless… Read More
June 17, 2021 Hybrid Data Conference Recap and Highlights That's a Wrap! Wow! What a wonderful time we had at the 2021 Hybrid Data Conference! Over the course of two days, we showcased amazing demos, customer stories and technology advancements across the Actian portfolio. For those in attendance, we hope you enjoyed the event and opportunity to see a few of the ways… Read More
July 13, 2020 Why do you need a Data Hub? Are you still doing point-to-point integrations between your IT applications? If you are, please stop. It makes life difficult for your IT support staff, increases your overhead costs, and makes it harder for you to be agile and to evolve your integrations as business needs change. Instead, consider whether this is the right time… Read More
July 9, 2020 What is the Difference Between ETL and IPaaS? ETL (extract, transfer, and load) and IPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service) are data integration methods to connect different IT systems and data sources together. While ETL is a set of techniques for moving data, IPaaS is a more holistic set of capabilities for moving and integrating data between IT systems. IPaaS is often… Read More
June 29, 2020 Connected Data in the Cloud Increases AI System Performance Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the core of the next wave of IT systems, and it is time to get ready. The past year has seen tremendous growth in the adoption of artificial intelligence systems to help companies improve operational insights and provide enhanced customer service experiences. If you aren’t leveraging AI to support your… Read More
June 22, 2020 Connected Data to Drive Service Assurance in IT IT Service Management (ITSM) staff have a unique challenge to provide service assurance across a broad and diverse technology ecosystem. Connected data is essential to enable them to do their job effectively. Your incident and problem management staff don’t know what they don’t know. They can only see the data that is made available… Read More
June 18, 2020 Don’t Just Move Data, Integrate it! If you are simply “lifting and shifting” data from one place to another, you are missing out on the power that a data integration platform can bring you. It is time to look beyond extract, transfer, load (ETL) from individual source systems, and expand your integrations to include multi-source joins that enable you to… Read More
June 15, 2020 Deploy and manage your integrations anywhere, anytime With Actian DataConnect Integration manager, you can deploy, configure, manage and repair your integrations anywhere - meaning if it resides in the cloud, on-prem, or even if it is embedded in your SaaS applications, anytime. The latest release of Actian DataConnect Integration manager includes an important set of enhancements to the Integration Manager API… Read More
May 13, 2020 Actian Integration Platform Helps Healthcare Companies Quickly Onboard New Customers and Carriers Healthcare companies are experiencing some trying times, made worse by the COVID-19 crisis. Competitors are now becoming partners, research institutions, and pharma companies are taking a more active role in monitoring patient care, and governments are closely monitoring statistics on patient diagnosis. Everyone in the extended healthcare industry is actively seeking to understand, plan,… Read More
May 12, 2020 Why Data Interoperability is Vital in Healthcare The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed fatal cracks in the way healthcare organizations share patient data. Actian DataConnect can help – supporting various healthcare industry standards and enabling rapid data interoperability interchange and transformation of electronic health records (EHR) between healthcare entities. All while supporting data quality and adhering to healthcare privacy and security regulations.… Read More
May 5, 2020 Healthcare Companies Need to be Aware of Health Information Exchange Rule Changes and Understand how it Impacts them. Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) play a critical role in enabling healthcare companies to share data by getting clinical information to where it is needed. HIEs gather electronic medical information or EMR (Electronic Medical records ) from hospitals, doctors, and other healthcare providers across a region so the data can be shared securely. This enables… Read More
April 29, 2020 Developing a 360-Degree View of Your Customer With Connected Data How well do you know your customers? Do you know what they buy? Do you know when and why they make purchases? Do you know who influences their buying behavior? Do you know how price sensitive they are and what types of promotions they respond to? You should know these things. Connected data can… Read More
April 22, 2020 Connected Data Makes Compliance Easier Regulatory compliance can be a headache for any company. If you do business globally, the challenge is even more significant. Governmental regulations vary greatly across countries and even within local regions. If that weren’t difficult enough, add on a continuous stream of regulatory changes, and you have a real problem. Whether you are trying… Read More
April 16, 2020 In Healthcare, Connected Data Drives Holistic Patient Care Providing high-quality patient care is a team effort. Data is what enables healthcare professionals to understand the full scope of issues patients are facing, share diagnostic data, coordinate care across providers to ensure the best quality treatment recommendations, and follow-up care. Over the past decade, healthcare companies have drastically expanded their use of technology… Read More
March 31, 2020 Five Reasons Why You Need an Enterprise Data Integration Strategy Modern businesses don't run on a single application – they leverage many IT systems to provide the capabilities to enable operational processes and users to be effective. To ensure complex IT environments run smoothly, companies are placing increased focus on how systems are integrated, and the activities required to manage integrations across the ecosystem. … Read More
March 10, 2020 Capabilities to Enable the Next Wave of Digital Transformation Digital transformation is a journey, not a destination. Over the past few years, companies of all sizes, across industries have embarked on digital transformation journeys to modernize the way they leverage technology within their organizations. Business processes have been re-defined and deeply integrated with IT systems, applications, and automation capabilities to create highly efficient… Read More
March 3, 2020 Do you Need a Data Fabric? Are you challenged to provide faster access to integrated data across a diverse and distributed IT landscape? Over the past few years, IT organizations are increasingly being asked to automate the systems and processes involved in integrating and preparing their data for reporting, leveraging things like active metadata, artificial intelligence (AI) / machine learning… Read More
February 25, 2020 Is your Integration Platform Ready to Embrace Emerging Technology Trends? Some exciting technology trends are emerging that are projected to hit the mainstream over the next few years that will have a significant impact on your data management systems. Will your integration platform be ready to support these new trends? If not, now is the time to act so you will be prepared to… Read More
February 24, 2020 Robotic Process Automation is Hot – Integration is Not! Robotic process automation (or RPA for short) is the term used to describe the next generation of technology-enabled workflow management capabilities. RPA solutions come in various sizes and shapes from a myriad of different vendors. RPA is the current buzzword and has enormous growth opportunity but integration is complex and requires expensive skills and… Read More
February 17, 2020 Real-Time Connected Data Warehouse – Operational Analytics made easy You've been doing the "digital transformation" thing for a couple of years – integrating your business and IT processes and leveraging technology and data in new ways to drive greater operational efficiency and immersive customer experiences. Your users are happy, but management is starting to ask questions about what's next and how they can… Read More
February 13, 2020 Real-Time Connected Data Warehouse use case – Gain Real-Time Visibility into your IT Infrastructure – Connecting Operations Management, ITSM, and Cloud Does your company have a real-time connected data warehouse where you can aggregate data flowing in from all of your IT systems together with streaming data from IoT, mobile, and SaaS services? Can you easily connect your on-premises, cloud, and multi-cloud systems to enable centralized analytics? If so, that's awesome! Now for the big… Read More
July 12, 2022 How to Use Customer Data Analytics in Your Business: What You Need to Know Whether you are a business leader or a marketing professional, you know that a company’s most valuable asset is its customers. Today, data analytics is the new competitive advantage. Customer data analytics is about more than just an increase in revenue and customer satisfaction levels. It is about your entire business ecosystem. In fact,… Read More
July 7, 2022 Data Security, Data Privacy, and What’s Required in your Cloud Data Platform The cloud has revolutionized the way modern businesses operate. By moving to the cloud, companies can access data and applications from anywhere globally, scale their remote infrastructures in real-time, and take advantage of cloud-based analytics and machine learning tools. Transitioning to cloud-based applications and solutions offers unparalleled flexibility for businesses, but it also comes… Read More
June 23, 2022 How Blind Spots and Data Gaps Decrease Data-Driven Business Value You can’t measure what you can’t see. If you consider this in terms of data, you also can’t analyze, curate, or leverage data blind spots to help create actionable insight. For many business technologists and business intelligence professionals, blind spots and data gaps create functional frustration and make it harder for teams to deliver… Read More
June 21, 2022 Cloud Economics – The Advantage of Moving Your Data to the Cloud (TCO) Cloud economics is a relatively new term, but it is growing in importance as businesses increasingly move their data to the cloud. As more organizations look for new ways to model their business in support of scalability and agility, it has become imperative that they better understand the short and long-term costs of cloud… Read More
June 16, 2022 Why Do Data Scientists and Developers Need More Than a Data Lake? As organizations strive to get more value from the data they collect, it has become increasingly important that data scientists and developers have easy access to information collected in multiple sources in various sizes and formats. For many businesses, creating a data lake has become the first step in this process, forming a useful… Read More
June 9, 2022 You Know You’re a “Citizen” Data Scientist If … Data collection and analysis have become increasingly important as multiple industries continue to drive their digital transformation initiatives. Whether it’s to improve customer experience, target marketing efforts, or just better understand how their business is performing, data is at the heart of it all. However, to make data work for you, you need the… Read More
June 7, 2022 The Business Technologist and Their Data Challenges According to a recent report from research firm Gartner, "organizations that effectively support business technologists are 2.6 times more likely to accelerate digital transformation." It makes sense: Because these professionals exist in the space between IT departments and non-tech teams, they can design and deploy solutions that deliver on both business and technology objectives.… Read More
April 15, 2022 Data Profiling and Data Quality: What You Need to Know Data is the lifeblood of business: it drives decision making, allows for analysis and prediction, and can help drive revenue. But data can also be its own worst enemy: it can lead to analysis paralysis, lead to inaccurate predictions, and even make processes more bureaucratic. That’s where data profiling and data quality come in.… Read More
September 21, 2021 Hybrid Cloud Benefits and Risks Hybrid cloud adoption is on the rise. As companies look to accelerate their cloud journey, it's becoming clear that there are numerous values - and constraints - when blending the use of private on-premises clouds with those of public off-premise clouds. Creating a strategic balance between the two can often yield more favorable results… Read More
September 14, 2021 Understanding Big Data Integration The topic of data integration has been around forever. Before we used technology to manage data, we integrated data in manual ways. At the time, we needed to integrate simple data structures such as customer data with purchase data. As the industry progressed, we have gone from managing flat data files and integrations to… Read More
September 8, 2021 Data Integration Architecture – What is it and why does it matter? Data is everywhere. In any organization, you will find data in multiple applications, databases, data warehouses, and in many cases, public and private clouds. Usually, data does not belong to a specific group within an organization and is often shared across teams and applications. Similar to a professional sports team, each function in the… Read More
January 18, 2023 Embracing Customer Profiling and Data Management Defining Exceptional Service Organizations always aim to give their customers the best experiences. There are several interpretations of what constitutes good and excellent service, and sometimes these terms are used interchangeably. However, many companies fail at achieving exceptional service because they do not understand their customers. Delivering any level of service requires that we… Read More
