Building the best tech stack to democratize data
Opendatasoft
Democratize your data! Our platform empowers everyone to create & share data experiences, increasing value for all.
Given the growing importance of data, and increasing data volumes, the range of technology tools used to manage information has expanded dramatically over the past decade. Organizations started building their tech stack by bringing in tools to centralize their data (such as data warehouses and data lakes) to underpin Big Data programs. This enabled data to be analyzed by experts, through specialized business intelligence tools. However, to maximize value from data it now needs to be democratized and made available to everyone within the business and its ecosystem. How can you complete your tech stack to achieve this??
The shift from expert tools to data democratization
Over time businesses have implemented a variety of data management tools to help them get the most out of their data. These include:
The need to complement your stack with a data portal?
One thing is common to all these tools - they are complex and require in-depth training to use them effectively. That means they can only be used by experts, rather than the wider organization. For example, data analysts are needed to create reports for managers, as it is too difficult for them to use BI tools themselves.??
Organizations are increasingly mature when it comes to deploying and using these expert tools. However, as data becomes more and more vital, there are simply not enough specialists available to meet an organization’s data needs. They become a bottleneck that holds back data democratization and the industrialization of data use.?
What is needed are tools that are easy to use by non-experts, and that can be managed with minimal training. Data portals fill this gap in the tech stack, providing the ability for everyone to access data with confidence, without requiring specialist tools or skills. Data portal solutions should also be straightforward and intuitive to manage, incorporating visual interfaces and no-code approaches to simplify management.?
The need to connect tools to enable data to flow freely
Organizations now have to manage a growing number of different datasets coming from a whole range of systems and then flowing through their data management stack. This means every tool has to be connected and interoperable in order to collect, process, prepare and share data with end users. Managing data flows at scale manually simply takes too much time and potentially leads to human error - organizations therefore need to automate the process to ensure quality and speed.
APIs are therefore essential, enabling organizations to automatically manage data flows and guarantee the quality and integrity of data updates. Opendatasoft’s API Automation feature makes it easy to configure specific actions by writing a script or choosing from 150 pre-built actions, from data publication, through domain management, to user permissions. After scripts or actions are chosen, they’ll run automatically without needing human intervention. This ensures quality and industrializes the management and sharing of data.?
The options for building your technology stack
Organizations have different aims for their data management programs - some want to solely share data internally to improve efficiency and decision-making, while others also want to share data externally with partners and customers. Here are three examples of how Opendatasoft customers have created a tailored tech stack:
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Schneider Electric uses a range of solutions to manage data across its lifecycle, ensuring it meets governance and sharing requirements. This includes cloud storage through Microsoft Azure and its Databricks data lakehouse solution. These feed data into the Opendatasoft platform, where Schneider Electric creates data experiences which are shared through its Exchange data and services marketplace .
The French Ministry of Sport collects a range of internal and external data, from government agencies including the Ministry of Health and the French National Statistics Authority (INSEE). These are all centralized within the Opendatasoft platform where they are prepared and enriched. Data is then shared through visualizations and reuses with political decision-makers, partners, businesses and the general public.?
Insurance company Lamie Mutuelle has made Opendatasoft the cornerstone of its data management strategy. All data, whether collected internally or externally by partner organizations, is centralized on the ODS platform. It is then shared through the platform in multiple formats, such as via dashboards for employees, with its Zoho CRM solution and other internal systems via APIs and with customers through its dedicated customer and partner portals .
Californian city Long Beach shares information publicly through its Opendatasoft-based open data platform. This collects information from a wide range of business systems and data sources inside the city council, including its Salesforce-based 311 reporting system, and then makes it available online as both raw data and a range of compelling visualizations, maps and data stories.
Ensuring your tech stack is complete and works together seamlessly is crucial to industrializing data flows across the organization. Companies therefore need to move beyond expert tools that can only be used by specialists to embrace more intuitive data portal solutions that provide data to all, in the right formats, without requiring in-depth training. Only then will they unlock the full value from their data and achieve true data democratization inside and outside their organization.
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