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SOA and Business Intelligence: Organizations Increasingly Improve BI with Unstructured External Data Sources
Mix large data sets with quality analytics and you have a recipe for best-in-class business intelligence. A report by Aberdeen and sponsored by Informatica finds that the organizations that have been most successful in making this recipe work for them are those that have mastered building data connection pipes — they’re able to pull in data not only from their own organization, but they’re also able to supplement their data with data from external sources.
The Aberdeen report says that agile and real-time data integration technologies are key to business intelligence. Increasingly the data which organizations wish to capture includes complex structured and semi-structured data. David White, Senior Analyst a the Aberdeen Group and author of the report, said “that organizations are making significant investments to harness more complex data from internal and external sources.”
The report finds that companies that reach out and include external data in their analysis can significantly improve the support and customer service which they provide. External data sources typically include third-party partners and online data services, . While the initial cost to set up the infrastructure for integrating with many data sources can seem high, automated data integration systems were found to ultimately result in significant savings across various parts of the organization, particularly in the areas of service and support. Organizations with effective data integration infrastructure were found to be able to slash data errors by 50 percent.
Increasingly data integration is being achieved with the use of XML. This is the most common semi-structured data source. 66 percent of organizations are using XML to integrate to internal data sources, and 74 percent are using XML to integrate with external sources.
For organizations to improve their data integration competencies, Aberdeen recommends:
- Build a single consolidated data transformation and exchange system
- Fully automate the transformation of complex data
- Keep a strong focus on the quality, consistency and accuracy of the data
