Today organizations are recognizing the value in data. They know If there’s a problem to be solved or a drive for more efficiency, the answer likely lies in data that’s already available.
It’s also widely recognized that accuracy improves when the volume of data increases. Put another way, more observations we have about an outcome gives us more certainty about that outcome in the future.
Where we find value from data
But where we see the greatest increase in value from data is when we successfully combine more diverse sources of data. Whether you are trying to understand why a machine is faltering or what turns a prospect into a buyer, answers to difficult problems are always rooted in complexity. The only way to solve these complex problems is to incorporate more complex resources. You have to use more data., and this is the data mashup.
We see these data mashups everywhere. It’s easier to understand customer behavior when you can combine purchase history with weather data. Making accurate predictions for shipping delays is easier when you have not just logistics data, but also data on drivers, ports, and shippers.
The value multiplier
Whether you are making predictions or simply need to understand a trend, combining relevant data creates a new data set that is more valuable than the sum of its parts. Together with a data virtualization (DV) tool like Cisco DV, EmcienScan becomes a powerful way to discover where that hidden value lies in your data.
DV makes it easy to combine relevant data from across the enterprise, and with Scan connected directly to DV, your ability to recognize that value is nearly automatic. Find and connect diverse data sources, and Scan will instantly show you the strength of data across that view. This includes a measure of how easy or difficult a given outcome will be to predict with the available data.
Discovery Across the enterprise
At a larger scale, EmcienScan and DV give this same insight into data across the enterprise and beyond. With access to data virtualization and Scan’s APIs, users can automate tracking of any combination of data in a table or virtual view. If you discover variables that are central to performance, Scan’s APIs can be set to make repeated scans of those critical data points.
Imagine not only knowing the key drivers of sales performance, but being able to watch those many different data points through time and even being alerted when the underlying structure and relationships in the data. Whether the task is ad hoc value discovery or automating scans for early alerts to key business drivers, combining virtualization with EmcienScan accelerates discovery across the enterprise.