The Weekly Blog is curated content from the Evolytics staff, bringing you the most interesting news in data and analysis from around the web. The Evolytics staff has proven experience and expertise in analytics strategy, tagging implementation, data engineering, and data visualization.

IS MARKETING TECHNOLOGY ENTERING A POST-PLATFORM ERA?

CHIEFMARTEC | BLOG

This martech post focuses on the rise of integration-platform-as-a-service (iPaaS). An iPaaS allows a company to have the best of both worlds, a more integrated marketing suite as well as more specialized, best-in-class options when necessary.

“Since marketing thrives on creativity and differentiation, there could be incredible potential for a robust ecosystem of add-ons that would let every marketing team craft their own ‘snowflake’ marketing machine, while the base platform provided a stable foundation with a consistent data model,” the article states.

Think of the iPaaS as a central nervous system. Someone signs in to your website and adds items to their cart, but fails to purchase. The iPaaS will distribute this data in all of the necessary places. This may mean updating your customer relationship management (CRM) tool with new data about this consumer’s preferences, sending a personalized email to this customer to entice them to purchase, or serving them personalized ads on social media.

For the iPaaS, or really any marketing initiative, to be successful, it must have a solid foundation of trustworthy, reliable data. Additionally, iPaaS models show true potential for automated marketing intelligence in the future, but this level of advanced analytic complexity will take time to develop and test in each business environment.

GOAL PERFORMANCE DASHBOARD

TABLEAU PUBLIC | DATA VIZ

Evolytics prides itself on its award-winning Data Visualization team.

We are recognized experts, not only in beautiful designs, but also in creating analytic tools for enterprise organizations. Our prescriptive analytics dashboard shows you, not just what is happening with your business, but also why. Our predictive analytics dashboards use historical data and statistical modeling to provide an expectation of what’s to come and allow for interactive what-if analysis.

We are able to do all of this through passionate employees such as Lindsey Poulter, who designs Tableau Public Vizzes in her spare time. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Viz is a great example of a descriptive dashboard, making it easy for a manager to quickly identify KPI performance over time.

If you want to get more from data visualization with your business, contact us. In addition to creating insightful dashboards, we offer Tableau Training to help your team realize the true potential of data visualization.

WHAT IS DATA DEMOCRATIZATION? A SUPER SIMPLE EXPLANATION AND THE KEY PROS AND CONS

FORBES | ARTICLE

The collection of big data has become standard practice at most enterprises, increasing the desire for data democratization. What exactly is data democratization, and what are the pros and cons associated with it though?

Forbes defines data democratization as everybody having access to data with no gatekeepers creating bottlenecks. The idea is that all stakeholders directly access the information needed to make data-driven decisions, but access must also be accompanied with an easy way for people understand the data.

Why democratize data?

Empowering people at your company with a diverse range of perspectives and expertise paves the way for insights and innovations that would otherwise go undiscovered. Data democratization eliminates bottlenecks and increases ownership for decision-making at various levels.

Why not democratize data?

In addition to the obvious security risks of giving more people data access, there are very valid concerns about the interpretation of data by employees who aren’t data savvy. It’s difficult to train stakeholders to treat data with objectivity when they want it to tell a specific story, or patience when they want to make an early judgement call.

What should I do?

Evolytics works with enterprise organizations to find the happy medium that works best for them. For instance, by aligning around specific key performance indicators, stakeholders at all levels are able to monitor performance and understand how to move their specific needles forward. By engineering solutions that normalize data across silos, there’s less risk for misinterpretation. Additionally, our expert use of data visualization and business intelligence software means automating the communication of data to non-technical employees, minimizing the risk for objectivity loss. Data democratization is a process without a one-size-fits all solution.