It’s a fact that modern business is data-driven. That data can be put to good use, with analytics tools, like Domo data warehouse, helping decision-makers and their teams provide accurate projections, keep on top of trends, track stock, or simply have accurate expense reports, among other uses. Businesses large and small face consistent challenges with managing data, from maintaining compliance and security, to making sure everyone who needs access can get to that information whenever and wherever they need it.
According to Statista, the amount of data flowing worldwide is speculated to grow to over 180 zettabytes by 2025 with the same study speculating by 2025, the data stored will increase at a “compound annual growth rate of 19.2 percent”. That’s a lot of data to store, but more importantly, that’s a lot of data to analyze and benefit from! As companies focus on getting more out of their data and getting a business analytics solution, like Domo, they often wonder how to best manage their data. To that, we say, “Centralize it.” Clients often come to us wondering if they need to move everything into a central data warehouse, perhaps like a Domo data warehouse. Many companies worldwide invest in keeping their data accessible from one source. So let’s go beyond the short answer of “Yes” and dive into the why and how of migrating one of your most precious resources.
Why Would We Want to Move Our Data?
Companies of all shapes and sizes (though mostly larger ones) often suffer from data fragmentation, meaning their data is scattered across multiple platforms. Every department has its preferred software and ways of doing things. So, data is siloed in various systems, making it challenging to integrate and create comprehensive insights between teams. Not to mention, sometimes differing software just doesn’t like to communicate with one another and can’t be integrated.
Centralizing everything into a system like a Domo data warehouse brings all that information together from across various sources, easing those above problems, among others. When your experts can get at data easily and each team can be on the same page simultaneously, workflow and analytical processes become incredibly efficient.
Well, We Just Use Spreadsheets
Smaller businesses may have a different struggle, as they’re not footing a bill for a bunch of different software setups. Programs like Excel are accessible and a great place to start, but lack scalability for growing data storage. Teams are dependent on each other for sharing data. Say your coworker has a spreadsheet and your workstation has another one they need to complete a report but your laptop is offline: how can they get their work finished? Or if they can finish that report you both need, where does it live – your device? Theirs? A copy on both? You can jump through fewer hoops to collaborate! A data storehouse will keep information organized and stored somewhere accessible to anyone, at any time, no matter who’s on vacation or what working hours they have set.
Using a business analytics system like Domo also means there’s less need for IT specialists to be on hand to manage data and answer questions. The intuitive dashboards are easy for everyone to navigate, so anyone can analyze your data regardless of their comfort with data management software. Plus, it’s much easier to fill the education gap on one piece of software instead of getting everyone up to speed on dozens of systems and integrations.
Spreadsheets also don’t clean data themselves. That requires tedious, time-consuming, and error-prone manual entry. A tool like Domo takes care of that for your team, making certain your data is clean and accurate, whether from one source or multiple. The investment in peace of mind and time-saving can potentially pay for itself as businesses scale.
So We’re Going to Need to Copy Everything, Then
The great dilemma with cloud data and centralizing everything for larger businesses comes down to a reluctance to manually copy everything to a new location, as there is often a lot of it to move. Many of our clients share that concern, as their data is in systems like Azure or AWS and it seems like it could be a pain to get it all into a new data warehouse. Thankfully, Domo thought of that and created their Cloud Amplifier to simplify the entire data transfer process. It makes native integration with cross-cloud systems a snap and involves all lines of business beyond IT. This reduces stress on IT to deliver timely access to data. It also resolves both rigidity and friction in data processes caused by inflexibility when tools don’t want to integrate well. All that means you don’t have to worry about having data in two separate places or needing to copy it all yourself, no matter how much information your company is working with. Cloud Amplifier takes advantage of your existing data warehouse and pulls information without moving or copying anything, building databases with ease.
Our System Is Directly Connected, Though
Some ERP software, like SYSPRO for example, use direct connections or integrations to your various other systems. So every time you access your dashboard, it pulls data directly from those other systems to create a single source of truth (SSoT), which sounds a lot like a data warehouse. It isn’t, though. First of all, it has to request that information every time you open up that dashboard and access it. That’s fine if it’s just one person but when multiple teams are accessing data at the same time, all trying to call information from those various sources, it bogs down the system.
A Domo data warehouse pulls that data daily, even hourly, from something like SYSPRO, and keeps it within its own system. That means that no matter how many people attempt to access it across however many logins and dashboards within Domo, the heavy lifting is done, so the process is speedy. What’s more, your teams are saving time, as they no longer need to log in to every separate system to access analytics, insights, and such. A Domo data warehouse makes sure that it’s all there in one place ready to go, and accessible by your decision-makers at any time.
As we’ve said before, what good is your data if the key players can’t access it easily? Centralizing data into one place may seem like a scary process but if you take a moment to chat with our data analytics experts, they’ll tell you as much as we’ve said here — it’s a pretty good idea. Big companies may be surviving using a variety of solutions that share data smoothly some of the time. Meanwhile, small businesses could be getting by on basic file management and spreadsheets across their team’s various laptops, but are definitely limiting the accuracy and speed at getting data compiled for decision-making.
That’s why both of these arrangements often run into roadblocks when the data storage needs outpace basic solutions or software becomes incompatible. In the end, most businesses need an executive analytics tool to make the best of their data but that doesn’t mean difficult data migrations. A system like Domo makes the process as painless as possible when companies want to make the move. All the analytical and presentational tools you could want to get the most out of your data, with no need to worry about the details of copying files or risking manual errors.
