Three Friends at a Bar Talking Data

It’s 11:00 pm, and we find three friends—Data Geek, Dr. Know, and Cloud Ninja—sitting at a hotel bar, sipping their drinks. Their conversation goes as follows:

Dr. Know: Data Geek, why do you look worried? You’re usually so cheerful and jovial.

Data Geek: You know me too well. I am enjoying the beer and the company, but I am going to be working all night to complete the monthly pipeline forecasting and actuals report.

Dr. Know: What’s the big deal? You’re an Excel junkie, so aren’t you going to re-run the same report?

Data Geek: Yes and no. Maybe I’m not a ninja in Excel, but it’s a very manual job to bring and combine data from our CRM and ERP systems. I’ve built macros and formulas to make my life a bit easier, but I don’t have a magic power to match country and state codes across different systems. And there are no definitions about the data. Every time I address a problem, something else breaks...it’s a nightmare. (He stares sadly at his beer.)

Dr. Know: That’s a shame…

Data Geek: We’re living in a world of Uber, Google, iPhone apps for anything and everything, but I feel like I’m still doing things the old-fashioned way. I wish there was an intelligent way to make my report and analytics work like magic.

Cloud Ninja (Looks disbelievingly at her friend over the rim of her old-fashioned): Come on, this is the era of cloud. Did you ever explore that option?

Dr. Know (Starts writing rapidly on a cocktail napkin): Yes, the cloud—this could really be easy for you! First, you can easily integrate and cleanse data (with iPaaS) from your CRM and ERP systems. And the country codes issue—that sounds like a reference data management problem. There’s a tool that will allow you to standardize country codes, cost centers, customer statuses, and even manage and track data definitions.

Now that you mention it, this really sounds like a great opportunity to intelligently automate all of your work.

Data Geek: What you are telling me sounds like a fairy tale! But my IT is already managing tons of applications and tools for us. I don’t think they would appreciate another tool that will add to their workload.

Dr. Know: Well, they won’t mind if it helps to reduce their burden, right? What I’m proposing is a hybrid data management solution. So instead of IT needing to manage all your software and hardware, it’s provided for you as a service. You can connect to your CRM and ERP applications, whether they are in the “cloud” or in your data center. If your IT has a preference to choose between Microsoft Azure, AWS Cloud, or Google Cloud Platform—they can decide where they want the services to run.

Data Geek: Sound very interesting and easy, but what’s intelligent about it? Won’t I still be manually pulling, combining, and checking the data?

Dr. Know: The intelligence is built into this hybrid data management solution . So, for example, the platform uses machine learning to make recommendations for automatically mapping country codes. You don’t have to code for AI! And there are many more intelligent things the platform can do, too.

Data Geek: Cloud sounds good—it’s like having my music wherever I go. But why should I care about cloud when all I want to do is build a report?

Cloud Ninja: Because cloud brings ease of use, just like your music app. It’s easy to understand, it’s hosted and managed, and it’s flexible and scalable. You can even add more capabilities if and when you need to. It’s designed to make your job easier and faster.

Data Geek: (Looking closely at the cocktail napkin.) This sounds very interesting. Where can I find more information?

Cloud Ninja: That’s easy. There is a launch event where you can learn more about data management cloud services.

Data Geek: That sounds great, guys. Thanks for the information. Next round is on me!

Three Friends: (Clinking their glasses in a toast) Cheers!

All three characters mentioned in this blog are NOT fictional but real humans. Even better, you can contact them personally if you have questions or would like to know more at [Prash Chandramohan (Data Geek)], [Deepa Sankar (Cloud Ninja)], and [Amit Kara (Dr. Know)].

And check out our free cloud trial and experience Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services for yourself.