Is the Modern Data Stack the Digital Touch Menu of Data Analytics?

Is the right mix of cloud-based applications enabling you to effectively exploit your data?

Hi, I’m Nick, and I firmly believe that there are few problems in a company that cannot be resolved by a more adequate analysis of the data. This is why I feel that any approach to getting a better handle on your company’s situation on the market — a snapshot of where you are now — can best be figured out using the modern data stack.

To explain the importance of and the ease of use of the modern data stack, I want to look at something with which all of us are familiar: The digital touch menu.

Hungry, we approach the glossy surface characterized by the blinking lights and appetizing images, and with the flick of a wrist, dozens of delicious menu items appear before our eyes. The digital touch menu helps you visualize the perfect meal for you — similar to what the modern data stack does for your business.

Do I want to have a sandwich? Perhaps a salad? Maybe some fries with ketchup? Better yet, a spicy ketchup will do the job this time. No, plain ketchup will do it for me this time. Should I make a combo instead? I want a combo, but I don’t like what’s in the combo on the screen — the touch menu allows me to make my own combo! Can I add a different kind of drink (dessert, side, specially made burger) to the combo so it better suits my tastes?

The answer to everything above is yes! Digital menus can increase revenue and decrease perceived wait time. Detailed information on allergens and nutritional benefits can be shared. Attractive visuals can entice customers, and content can be updated with just a few clicks. Maximum information is being shared, and company marketers gather and exploit invaluable data almost immediately.

The digital menu board helps marketers track customer interest in the new and existing menu items. Also, it gathers data on how people order, enabling techniques like suggestive selling, which is used to great success by McDonald’s. The digital touch menu is a progressive tool in restaurants, and it is the future of the food industry. Each restaurant is different, and the wants and needs of the customers also differ; tailoring menu boards to your needs dramatically increases your understanding and relationship with your customers.

Everything I wrote above here also pertains to the modern data stack.

How the Modern Stack Is Like a Digital Menu

There is a lot that goes into modern data stacks these days. Based on cloud-native applications, which means that the applications figuring things out for you are not downloaded to your computer but located in the cloud, your company’s needs determine the data infrastructure you need.

A lot of unseen things, too, are happening on the digital menu, which is why I chose this comparison. Information is relayed each time a click is made on a touch menu. This is a massive volume of data about customer habits that needs to be ingested (data ingestion). Customers all over the city, country, and world are clicking on menu offerings and either purchasing or not — but why are they making such decisions? With that data being fed — ingested — into a single, cloud-based storage system, it can then be accessed and analyzed — in data analytics lingo, this is called “data transformation.”

In many restaurants and companies, paper menus and legacy data stacks (Oracle, IBM, Microsoft) are still in use. In many cases, these systems have served their customers well but are hard to use and can’t provide up-to-minute data on your customers’ goings-on (whims). What if you sell rubber boots and a key sales area is experiencing unusually wet weather? By having access to the data immediately, you can price more progressively.

With paper menus, when a menu item runs out, customers will often still spend time choosing the dish even though it is no longer available. Their hopes for that favorite meal are dashed when they learn the item is out. The same could happen when boot customers race to Target and find empty shelves. A more responsive data assessment might have permitted you to shift the delivery of boots from a dry region to a wetter one.

Legacy data stacks decrease flexibility compared to the modern cloud-based data stacks in the same way the paper menus do for restaurant goers. The digital menu in the same way that the Big Data era programs restricted the full use of data. Manned by teams of specialists, the complicated systems proved to be slow and clunky compared to the agile cloud-based data warehouses.

Modern data stacks are characterized by more speed and are better for connecting data sources to a data warehouse in the cloud. The “menu” of programs available to best assess the data you need and when you need it is rich and varied. The days of employing a large team of analysts whose primary specialty is understanding the legacy data stack so they can provide you with reports that are not always the most timely are over.

Cloud data warehouses are accessible and usable by all users in a company. Going back to our menu analogy, in the old way of ordering, the analysis of the customer’s behavior was locked up in the head of the employee serving that customer — that was data not being exploited. Modern data stacks permit a larger group of people within companies to use the data proactively, thus creating a democratizing effect in companies.

As you contemplate your data strategy and think about how your data infrastructure will be created, walk over to your fast-food joint and give the digital touch menu a whirl. This will help you clarify why your company needs a flexible, modern, cloud-based data stack.