Core Data is Core to Your Business - Location Data Makes it Even Better

Venki Subramanian, Sr. VP of Product Management at MDM platform provider Reltio, explains the critical nature of natively embedded location content within a data management platform.

Blog: Core Data is Core to Your Business 

Location Data Makes it Even Better 

Cloud-first, native integration, seamless interoperability, these ideas all conjure up the notion of a smooth digital experience. And a platform never runs more smoothly than when highly structured, well governed, expertly stewarded content is embedded in the workflows. Natively embedded location content sources in a data management platform is a topic we covered on Ask The Experts with Venki Subramanian, Senior Vice President of Product Management at master data management (MDM) platform provider Reltio. 

“When I look at master data, or core data as it is referred in many organizations nowadays, it falls into a few different categories,” explained Venki. “It involves organizations, it involves individuals, it involves products, and it involves locations.” 

Location data, along with address verification, are two key types of data that are crucial for any enterprise company that wants to achieve success. In today's business environment, accurate data is essential for making informed decisions, reducing risks, and driving growth.  

Act Global - Address Local 

Venki recognizes that there are additional complexities and challenges that companies have to consider when they become a global business through a globally distributed organization.  “The way you describe an address in the United States may not be the same way as you describe the location in another country like United Kingdom, Germany or India. This creates complexities, understanding the local versions of the data, the local representations of the data add an additional challenge to these businesses as they become global.” 

When it comes to that global nature, global enterprises have to contend with local data formats, local representations of the same information. They have to contend with local regulations, for example, on how to protect the data and comply with the different regulations around data protection, and data privacy, adding further levels of complexity. (For more on the challenges of address data in cross-border payments see this interview with Rob Heidenreich, Vice President Global Sales and Partnerships for Loqate) 

You CAN Handle the Truth! 

Venki believes that with a focus on digital transformation, more and more companies are trying to make sure that they have the best trusted version of “true data” on their customers, employees, products and locations in every relevant business process. 

“If you look at what companies are trying to do, they are trying to deliver key business outcomes in the form of driving more growth, ensuring higher operational efficiency, and ensuring that they are complying to different regulations and minimizing the risk associated with it.” 

A customer calling into a contact center is a typical example. “That contact center agent needs the most accurate information about that customer, the products they have purchased, and where this customer is located at that point of interaction,” Venki said. 

Although a call center use case might be a logistical, almost clerical example Venki believes MDM can provide a distinct strategic advantage and should be part of the leadership conversation. “MDM is not something that happens in the back office, in the basement, in the IT corners only. It is a conversation that needs to be had at the C-level because ultimately you're impacting the key outcomes for your shareholders, for your customers, for your employees and your partners.” 

Need for Data Speed 

Speed is clearly of the essence with it comes to modern data management. By having access to the most up-to-date and accurate information, companies can improve decision-making, enhance the customer experience, increase efficiency, ensure better data quality, and monitor and control operations in real time.  

“The velocity at which this data was captured, curated, consolidated, used to be more attuned to analytical use cases,” said Venki, “so it was okay to take a day to curate data to find the best version and provide it to downstream systems. That is not the need anymore, and that transition is something that companies are still going through and struggle with.” 

Ask The Experts co-host. Robert Dickson, Loqate’s Vice President of Professional Services, concurs “our expectations, especially with the innovation of smartphones, has become instantaneous. I want to be able to enter something and then see it updated immediately.” 

At Reltio Venki has seen that companies are managing millions, sometimes tens and hundreds of millions of customer data and multiple types of master data, which they are required to assemble and provide to the points of consumption in the different systems in real time. 

Access to master data in real time is crucial for companies that need to make informed decisions quickly and efficiently. Since master data is the core data that is used throughout an organization, by having access to this data in real time companies can respond rapidly to changes in the market, customer needs, and internal operations. 

According to Venki, Reltio has a focus to be the real time data unification engine for any kind of master data. And not just real time focus, but the real time focus at scale as the first cloud-native SaaS master data management product.  This need for speed is supported by the native integration of Loqate services into the Reltio data platform.  

“This is a seamless, very well integrated solution right from the point of inception.” Venki explained that “what makes our partnership unique is the combined ability to collect and unify any kind of data, which includes location as a key attribute, then enrich the data, with the key capabilities that Loqate as a company provides without involving any additional overhead from a customer perspective. In the end, the customers get the best quality location intelligence.” 

Common Problems – Standard Solution 

Venki see that a common data objective of enterprises to collect data from disparate sources, unify data across key customer domains, analyze and make sure that that data is high quality, and then activate that through these different customer initiatives that ultimately lead to higher growth, improved efficiency, lowering the cost of risk and compliance. 

Almost any initiative that you can think of in a company ties to one or more key business outcomes of growth, efficiency, risk and compliance. What are the foundational data requirements for these initiatives Venki wonders? “It comes down to having clean, consolidated master data. All companies are essentially trying to collect data from disparate sources and unify the data along the key data domains that they care about. The fundamental nature of the problems is not really different.” 

No matter the sector or use case. organizations of every size and shape still want a single, unified, trusted repository of their core data to power their business processes. “To get the best insights and make them actionable,” Venki concluded. One thing that will never change, is that companies will always want the data they need to focus on the business of business.