We are pleased to announce the general availability of DataConnect 12.2. This release furthers our commitment to making it easy for our integration customers to connect, transform, and analyze data. With this release, customers will now have a faster path to the cloud using the Actian Data Platform to deploy existing integrations to cloud-based…
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…
Competition for customers is more intense than ever. And landing customers is only half the battle. Keeping them happy is the other half. Creating customers for life entails nurturing relationships and predicting changing needs, or risk losing customers to competitors. Innovative marketers understand the importance of knowing their customers so they can meet their…
Customers want outcomes and consistency as they move across their preferred channels. However, many organizations are struggling to transition from multichannel marketing strategies to omnichannel marketing strategies. What is Multichannel? A channel is any place where a customer interacts with the company. Most businesses rely on a mix of channels to interact with their customers…
The key to a successful marketing campaign is to reach customers at the right place, at the right time, with the right message. Traditional market segmentation used in campaigns aggregates prospective buyers into groups with common needs. Marketers hope that customers in the same segment will respond similarly to a marketing promotion. But will…
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…
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…
Let's face it, information withholding is common in many industries, but it’s been especially rampant in the healthcare space. Payers and Providers have avoided scrutiny for the cost of care delivered and the reimbursements they were collecting. Consequently, information blocking has become one of the key impediments in shifting from a fee-for-service (FFS) model…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Abraham Lincoln might easily have been discussing data preparation steps for analytics when he said, “If I had 8 hours to chop down a tree, I would spend 6 sharpening my axe.” Spending 75% of the allotted time on preparation may seem like a lot. But in fact, most industry observers report that data…
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…
Systems thinking and the organization There are many ways to describe system thinking. We can say system thinking is a way of viewing or thinking about a system in terms of structure, patterns, cycles, and data exchanges. System thinking can also be thought of as a way of integrating a person into organizational flows…
A few months ago, companies went into crisis mode, globally – figuring out how to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak. Since then, most organizations have overcome the initial shock and disruption and figured out how to adapt their workforce and business processes for a remote-work environment. When this started, the hope was that COVID-19…
