Blog: Data Integration

I was at a party over the holidays, on Christmas Eve actually, and the kids had my neighbor’s laptop open all night, busily tracking Santa Claus’ progress delivering toys all over the world.  And my neighbors were pretty excited about it, pretty geeked up about how cool it was that NORAD would do something like that for kids. Meanwhile, I was thinking that what these kids were really doing was using all the available data they had to put some transparency on their supply chain and how, in fact, their supplier (Santa) was using geospatial data to achieve just in time delivery.

Searching on a certain gift I needed to pick up for the holidays (and knowing that I didn’t have the time to order online) I needed to find it as close to home as possible. That reminded me that most of the data that your business relies on contains a geographic component: an address, a parcel number, proximity to another location.  We’ve really come a long way in incorporating this data into our everyday business intelligence, but we can do more, I think.  Spatial data and the ability to incorporate this information with other business data can really open up some doors for your business.  And it can also help you to understand which doors are better left closed! 

While the telecommunications industry has been the source of many innovations regarding information theory and managing the level of quality for data exchange, the same industry continues to be plagued by negative impacts related to data flaws. Incomplete records and variations in customer and location data are just the tip of the iceberg - all aspects of corporate value are affected by poor data quality, impairing revenue growth, increasing costs, while increasing risks associated with leakage, fraud, and regulatory noncompliance.