As a business owner, you most definitely understand the importance of gathering all kinds of data on a daily basis. Even if you’re still not sure of the importance of it all, you certainly understand that your company does generate a great amount of data every single day. You have storing methods in place as well, because you don’t want to lose what you’ve gathered. The only thing that you still might not know here, though, is that data integration is a must, because you’ll have no use of all the info you’ll generate if you don’t integrate it properly.
If you just let the info pile up without having any systems in place that will properly integrate it, the info is highly likely to become completely unmanageable and useless at a later stage. I suppose that you understand this on some level, but there is a good chance that you still aren’t entirely sure what data integration is in the first place, or why it is so important to your particular business. Well, if those are the questions that are worrying you, then I have some good news for you right now.
In short, if you continue reading, you will get your answers. I am going to tell you more about the concept of data integration in general, and then I will also talk about its importance for your business. So, without any more ado, let us start answering those questions for you, because you undeniably need to get your facts straight on everything if you want to successfully run your company and use the information you’ll gather to your advantage. Here we go.
What Is Data Integration?
If you think about this term more carefully, you will realize that it actually speaks for itself and that it is really easy to determine what this process is. To cut right to the chase, data integration is the process of combining all the necessary info that you’ve received from multiple different sources, with the aim of using the info to come to certain conclusions and generally improve the way you do business. Go here for a more detailed definition.
In the event that the above explanation has made the process sound simple, let me tell you right away that there is much more to it than you might be thinking right now. Sure, it is certainly not extremely complicated and you’ll get to do it perfectly once you get the hang of it, but that is precisely why you need to know at least which processes and steps are parts of data integration. In short, this process includes steps such as ingestion, mapping, cleansing, as well as transformation.
After all of those important steps are taken, data integration will serve a rather significant purpose. Basically, it will help your analytical tools to provide you with certain relevant insights and the kind of business intelligence that you will absolutely need if you want to make any improvements to the way your company operates or if you want to check your current progress and success. I suppose you get why that’s important.
Another thing you should know here is that there are various different approaches to data integration, meaning that there is no one-size-fits-all method that all the companies out there will use. In spite of that, there are some common elements that all the different approaches will include, such as a network of data sources, a master server etc. I suppose, however, that you’ll do more detailed research on how to do this when you realize just how important it can be for your company.
Read more about the process here: https://www.techtarget.com/searchdatamanagement/definition/data-integration
Why Does It Matter To Your Business?
Since I’ve mentioned that you’ll learn how to do this when you realize how important it is, it is only natural for us to proceed towards the next significant question and tell you a bit more about why data integration matters for your business. There is a chance that you already have an idea about this, but let us make things perfectly clear here. After all, you do need to understand the significance of something in order to decide whether you want to use it to your advantage or not, so that’s what I am going to help you with right now.
There are various different reasons why this integration is rather significant for your business, but let me now get you familiar with some of the most important ones. For starters, this process will help you identify your market segments and thus target the right groups. Additionally, it will help you connect all the important info together in no time and thus improve your market research and reduce the time necessary to gain certain insights. And, of course, it will also lead you towards identifying any errors and flaws that you might want to fix in your operations.