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Transforming Retail Legacy Systems with a Data Operating System
A Better Way to Plan the Payoff of Technical Debt
Technical debt is an ongoing issue no one should expect to square away because as technology advances, even today's top systems will eventually achieve full "legacy" status. However, if you don't keep on top of it, technical debt will eventually cause significant...
Start Paying Down Your Technical Debt Today
Technical debt is an issue that often isn’t given the attention it deserves. Companies can even get away with ignoring it for quite a while. However, once it rears its ugly head, technical debt can be incredibly costly both in terms of money and reputation. Look no...
Data Governance Series: Part 2 – The Importance of Data Taxonomy
Data governance can be a powerful agent in scaling the use and distribution of trusted data throughout the company. However, more often than not, it conjures up the idea of a central authority strictly guarding against such access. In this 3-part series, we’ll cover...
Are Healthcare Organizations Setting the Right 2023 Goals?
Hospitals and healthcare organizations have no shortage of obstacles moving into 2023. Despite this dire proclamation, the healthcare industry has the opportunity to transform itself as long as it sets the right goals and supports them with analytics. Let’s look at...
Is Your Head Too High up in the Cloud?
Is Your Head Too High up in the Cloud? There is no doubt that the cloud is here to stay and that it will be a part of every company’s future data and analytics strategy. However, knowing that the cloud is an important piece of the puzzle does not mean that companies...
Understanding the True Cost of Data Debt
Technology moves fast. Sometimes solutions to big challenges already exist, but more often, a problem appears before a solution. Companies must then take creative measures to “fix” technology challenges, leaving them with temporary solutions that quickly obsolesce....
Lessons in Technical Debt from Southwest Airlines
It was hard to miss Southwest Airlines’ holiday travel fiasco earlier this year. After a winter storm blew through a large swath of the United States, Southwest’s systems and processes had a complete meltdown. It took thousands of canceled flights, many days, and...
Self-Service as a Productivity Enabler for Experts
When discussing self-service tools for data and analytics, people usually place their focus on the goal of enabling non-experts to do more things for themselves. While enabling citizen data scientists, citizen data engineers, and others to do more with data and...
Is Self-Service Analytics All Hype?
Self-service has been a hot topic in the analytics space for many years already, and it won’t be going away any time soon. Given that, it is reasonable to ask: why is it that with all the focus it has received, self-service capabilities are still far off from where...
A Year of Modern: Our Top 2022 Blog Posts — Chosen by You
Another year, another chance to learn more about the world of data. In 2023, The Modern Data Company (Modern) hopes to reach more companies and organizations with our data operating system, build incredible value from existing and upcoming data assets, and share...
Improve Your Customer Data Platform with DataOS®
Customer data platforms (CDPs) are increasingly popular sources of customer insights. These systems are usually owned and operated by an enterprise marketing department and provide data for insights into customer trends, behavior, and customer 360 analyses....
Building a Future in Banking and Capital Markets
Banking and Capital Markets are undergoing a period of transformation. The global economic outlook is somewhat fragile, but banks are in an excellent position to survive and thrive as long as they have the right tools in place. According to Deloitte’s report 2023...
Holiday Downtime, Without Data Downtime
Data center downtime can be costly. Gartner estimates that downtime can cost $5,600 per minute, extrapolating to well over $300K per hour. When your organization’s digital service is interrupted, it can impact employee productivity, company reputation, and customer...
How Wrong Was Gartner’s Automation Prediction?
Once upon a time, Gartner predicted that 40% of all data science tasks would be automated. Naturally, this caused some discussion about the future of the profession and whether it would still be the hottest position on the market. However, as the field progresses,...
How to Create a Public Health Infrastructure Using a Data Operating System
One of the biggest reasons societies band together to create a governing body is to help care for members of that society. Government should help us maintain a certain standard of living, help solve societal challenges, and mobilize when disruptions happen....
A Look Back: How DataOS Enabled Gartner’s 2022 Trends
Gartner’s Strategic Technology Trends for 2023 was just released, but before we address their predictions for the upcoming year, we want to take a look back. The Modern Data Company has been working hard to refine DataOS and build a new paradigm for using data....
A Secure HIPAA-Compliant Cloud Drives Healthcare’s Newest Innovations
With cybersecurity on everyone’s mind, there is a lot of discussion about the harmful effects of cyber attacks in the healthcare industry. While this is a serious concern with far-reaching consequences, we shouldn't forget that advances in cybersecurity can enable...
How Companies Can Leverage Each of Gartner’s 2023 Strategic Technology Trends
Gartner’s newest strategic technology trends are in for 2023, and they echo something The Modern Data Company (Modern) has been saying for a while: simply having data isn’t going to create a competitive edge. The list prioritizes optimizing, scaling, and pioneering...
$44 Billion: The Cost or Return on Data
The Case of Twitter Twitter handles around 500-700 million tweets per day, equating to roughly 12 terabytes of data every 24 hours. Another way to understand the scale is to consider that this amounts to over 4K terabytes of data each year. Even with an army of the...
Is It AI or Automation – And Does It Matter?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is something that almost every large business seems desperate to pursue. The number of companies using AI today, and the range of problems AI is being applied to, are both increasing steadily. At the same time, there is another phenomenon...
Digital Transformation in Manufacturing With a Data Operating System
According to a recent survey of manufacturing industry leaders, 91% increased investments in digital transformation with 77% of those investments being cited as significant or dramatic. Executives recognize that technological advancement is necessary to remain...
Big Data for Manufacturing: The Machine of the Future
IBM states that 53% of manufacturing organizations leverage big data and analytics to generate competitive advantage. These organizations understand that an increasingly global and competitive landscape necessitates digital innovation and transformation. Big data is a...
Stronger Cybersecurity Starts With a Data Operating System
In an ambitious effort to reduce the threat of cyber attacks on critical infrastructure in the United States, President Biden signed an executive order to improve cyber threat information sharing between the government and the private sector. Signed in May, the order...
How to Increase Supply Chain Visibility for True Resilience
A supply chain runs on such a razor-thin margin for error that a single point of failure can have catastrophic and far-reaching consequences. If you doubt this, consider the Suez Canal blockage back in March 2022, which cost some companies an astonishing $400 million...
Cybersecurity in Financial Services Requires a Fresh Data Management Approach
Data management isn't just a competitive differentiator in banking and financial services — it's a core business requirement. Despite financial services changing rapidly in response to global disruption and new technology, the industry’s data remains a key protected...
Aligning Data Strategy with Business Strategy
Everyone knows that data is an important component of managing a successful business today. Yet many companies fail to fully align their data strategies with their business strategies, leading to disconnects that are quite painful. Some examples from the past year’s...
Modern at the North America AI & Big Data Expo
This past week, we had the chance to present a new, modern approach to the data development lifecycle at the North America AI & Big Data Expo in Santa Clara, California. We were joined by 5,000 like-minded attendees, including developers, designers, data experts,...
Supply Chain Data Management — From Visibility to Value
Imagine what the skies would be like if no control tower existed to monitor and direct flights. What would emergency services be without dispatch control to coordinate the most appropriate response? The ensuing disruptions are apt analogies to describe what happened...
Data Democratization – No, Really!
Data democratization is one of the data world’s favorite buzzwords, but data management platforms have a hard time delivering it––even when they say they will. This article examines some of the goals and roadblocks on the way to data democratization and shows how...
The Six Essential Functions of the Modern Data Platform
Modern data platforms are infamously fragmented and still proliferating. Feature sets are at once duplicative and bewilderingly diverse. In order to find the best solution for a business, we need a set of standard functions that every data platform should fulfill. We...
Data ROI Starts at the Source
Inaccurate data affects the bottom line of 88% of organizations, leading to an average loss of 12% of revenue. This loss of revenue comes from insufficient data to inform and drive business goals. Data quality starts at the source — which is why it’s so important how...
The Story of Our Brand is the Story of Modern
I have the great pleasure of handling marketing strategy for The Modern Data Company. We recently refreshed our brand, which includes a completely revamped website and marketing materials. Branding is a labor of love. I work for one of the most exciting companies in...
Modern: A Brand Big and Bold
At The Modern Data Company, we’ve been working behind the scenes to launch our refreshed look and we are so excited to finally reveal it. It's taken several months of careful consideration, wild creativity, and sweat equity from our team members. It may seem like...
Want a Model for Digital Transformation? First, You Need a Data Model.
A data model is a visualization of data elements and the relationships between them. Such models should be dynamic, evolving with the needs of the organization. They act as a blueprint where data structure and business needs meet. A well-designed data model will:...
Improve Customer Lifetime Value with a Unified Data Platform
A recent survey from Havas Group found that a staggering 75% of brands could simply disappear overnight and no one would notice or care. That statistic should shake companies and their marketing teams to the core. Customer loyalty is low, and the age of...
MIT CDOIQ: The Modern Data Company Introduces DataOS®
We recently had the opportunity to present our vision for a new data paradigm at the 15th Annual MIT CDIOQ Symposium in Cambridge, Massachusetts at the iconic MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory building. The symposium brought together like...
The Lack of Unified Data Operations Is Limiting Your Customer Experience Innovation
While "know thyself" might be one of philosophy's great maxims, "know thy customer" reigns supreme in the business world. Data has made knowing customers more attainable than ever, but only if companies can use the data they collect. Fractured, out-of-date, difficult...
CPG Data Trends for 2022 Come Down to One Thing: Simplify
It's almost a cliché to mention that the pandemic has changed everything. Consumers have changed their shopping habits, and hiccups in the supply chain have created impossible situations for retailers and their suppliers. These challenges happened quickly and without...
Creative Ways Retail Business Intelligence Delivers Value to Customers
It may surprise you to know that retail is one of the most data-driven industries out there. While tech companies may get all the press for leveraging data — for better or worse — it’s retail that’s putting customer data to use to create dynamic experiences and pivot...
The Modern Guide to Finding the Hidden Value of Data
During every episode of Antiques Roadshow, there’s at least one crowd-favorite story that goes something like this: A person finds something old and a little unusual. They may not know who made it or exactly what it’s for. They certainly don’t think about it daily...
Creating A New Governance Era with A Data Operating System
Data governance is on everyone's mind as we move from a static model of data to a dynamic, living, breathing data architecture. As many brilliant people have already said, data — and knowledge in general — is full of "ghosts," or implicit knowledge existing within any...
Forget ELT and ETL Pipelines – You Need DataOS
As enterprises modernize their data architecture, they have to make challenging decisions about legacy systems. Not all organizations are ready to offload their ETL pipelines. Unless decision-makers are also tech experts, they may not realize that ETL pipelines...
Scaling Analytics Through DataOps
There has been tremendous growth in demand for and acceptance of advanced analytics, data science, and artificial intelligence over the past few years. While this progress will be a great thing in the long run, it has also eclipsed companies’ abilities to effectively...
How A Data Operating System Disrupts in the Right Way
Data tools have not fully addressed today's requirements for the infrastructure layer of the data stack. The Modern Data Company (Modern) believes we're entering the golden age of data science. Still, in order for enterprises to realize the full value of their data...
DataOS®: Metadata and the Data Catalog for the Modern Data Stack
Anyone who works with data knows that it’s long past time for data catalogs to catch up with the rest of the modern data stack. Data is no longer consumed primarily by the IT team. Today, data teams include data analysts, data scientists, product managers, business...
Data Access is (Almost) More Important Than Data Itself
Data is a vital business asset, but most businesses lock it away in storage for only a few eyes to see. And no wonder—security breaches and leaked information cost companies millions each year. When talking about data as a differentiator for business success, it's a...
3 Ways The Modern Data Company Thinks Differently About Data
We, at the Modern Data Company (Modern), still cringe no matter how many times we hear statistics about how long data scientists spend cleaning data for use or how much data goes to waste restricted in silos. Data is a company’s lifeblood — beyond the “new gold” or...
Legacy Systems Aren’t the Enemy — Your Current Architecture Is
When people start a conversation about legacy systems, there’s a good chance that replacing the system comes up. And why not? Legacy systems don’t always have the newest bells and whistles, and they may not immediately signal a tech-forward business strategy....
The Core Principles of a Modern Data Platform
It seems that every big player in the data industry today claims to be a real “data platform,” or at least indispensable in building one. Finding a way through this sea of options requires some clarity about what a “modern data platform” is and does. A modern data...
Why Data Sharing is the Key to Evolved Distribution Processes
Imagine losing billions of dollars each year simply because of a lack of visibility. This is a reality for distribution and supply chain organizations thanks to incomplete shipment data. In an industry already running on the thinnest margin, industry leaders are keen...
How to Unlock Data for Operational Reporting
Supply chain and distribution complexity requires big data, but big data introduces its own set of challenges. Without the right tools, companies can set up a vicious catch-22: gather plentiful data to unravel operational bottlenecks, but get swamped in data and...
The Secret to Successful Inventory Management? Real-Time Data
In an episode of the popular British show The Office, a branch manager of a paper company walks through the warehouse with a district administrator. The administrator remarks that inventory levels are "scary" and admonishes the branch manager not to tie up any more...
How Retail Can Build a Security-First Data Architecture
Retail loves data. While tech companies get all the press when it comes to data and innovation, retail is quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) ramping up data collection and analytics to pursue the ideal customer 360 model. It has become essential to the industry’s...
Transforming Retail Legacy Systems with a Data Operating System
Companies are spending more than they think maintaining legacy systems, but what’s the alternative? Offloading them? If the thought of burning bridges with legacy systems made you sweat, there is a way to integrate these systems into your new stack without...
You Don’t Have to Abandon Customer 360
Data silos are where insights go to die. Everyone knows this, but the retail sector experiences unique challenges when it comes to bridging those gaps. Customers demand more personalization and better interactions with brands, making overcoming data silos one of the...
Harnessing the Power Behind the Healthcare Data Boom
The future of business lies in data, and any company ill-prepared for the ride risks getting left behind. This is true for nearly every sector, but it’s especially concerning for companies in healthcare. Estimates suggest that a single patient generates up to 80...
The Key to Digital Transformation in Healthcare — Data Integrity
Data integrity remains a critical concern for healthcare providers as they grapple with digital transformation. Consumers want their digital records available to those who care for them, without compromising security. Big data is a significant component of those...
Building the Next Phase of the Data Lake
Introducing Modern’s Newest Series: Data Lakes Aren’t Dead Data Lakes are dead. We desperately need data lakes. Gartner declares data lakes are over. Data lakes are surging. It wasn’t too long ago that everyone was excited to build a new type of centralized data...
The Four Pillars of DataOS
The Modern Data Company is building its entire legacy around four distinct pillars. These pillars take on modern business challenges around data and digital transformation. When Modern’s clients invest in DataOS, Modern’s data operating system, they gain tools to...
How Zero Trust Protects a Vulnerable Supply Chain
The Industrial Internet of Things is shaking up the world of manufacturing and all of its supply chains. Thanks to IoT devices and the steady rollout of 5G connectivity, companies have an unprecedented look into the health of the shop floor, can monitor for...
Why You Need a Solution, not a Service
Enterprises today have lots of data. This includes legacy data, partner data, transactional data, third-party data, and more. Most enterprises purchase many point solutions trying to create a complete and flexible data ecosystem. The problem is that the demands for...
The Power of Regular Data Health Checks
Companies capture data like champions, but there’s always a sneaking suspicion that they aren’t using the data to its fullest potential. Unfortunately, this isn’t just the companies’ imagination (or paranoia). A startling amount of data goes totally unused, not simply...
Using Collaborative Intelligence to Future-Proof Business
Traditional ways of doing business are a death sentence for modern companies. In the 1950s, Fortune 500 companies had a life expectancy of at least 60 years, but today, they’re expected to last fewer than 20 years. What has led to this change? Today, companies must...
Four Ways Companies Can Build Next-Level Analytics Capabilities
Companies gather data, invest in tools to make sense of data, and hire talent to prepare and analyze the data. However, it seems that less than 25% of companies have managed to create a data-driven organization. There’s a difference between having data available and...
Reducing Risk and Increasing Data’s Value in Healthcare
Data is healthcare’s number one asset and number one risk. With specialized compliance requirements and regulations for sensitive data, healthcare organizations are in the challenging position of having to both manage and make use of a wide array of powerful, yet...
How Data Fabric is Changing Data Privacy for Good
Data privacy is a challenging issue. With an increasingly wary public, the knee-jerk reaction is to lock data down. This is a mistake, because it restricts data analysis and all the benefits it can bring. Companies must balance privacy concerns while freeing up their...
Bulletproof Your Data Strategy from the Business Side
The conditions for strong, data-driven decision making don’t come only from IT. The business side also needs a plan to ensure that data becomes a central part of business operations and that they don’t unknowingly tie the hands of their best innovators. C-suite and...
Data Governance Series: Part 1 – Data Timeliness
Timeliness is a metric of data quality, measured by when data is available compared to when it is needed for analysis. Harvard Business Review estimates that poor-quality, out of date data costs US businesses $3.1 trillion per year. Yes, you read that correctly...$3.1...
Poor Data Health is Costly but Improving is Easier Than Ever
Potential data insights and what companies can actually get from their data are two very different things. In fact, one frightening study suggested that more than 70% of data goes unused for decision making. Several obstacles to data insight include the wrong tools,...
It’s Time to Make Integration Worries Obsolete
The past few decades have seen an explosion in the number of applications designed to help organizations manage data. It has become common knowledge that data is valuable—each shiny new data application promises to solve a problem, and if organizations are lucky,...
5 Signs Your Organization is Becoming Data-Driven
Adopting a data-driven culture is priority number one for many organizations. However, it can be challenging to know whether this shift has been accomplished. Becoming truly data-driven isn’t just about the technology. A company must create a data-driven culture to go...
We Have Data – Why Can’t We Use It?
Making the shift to data-driven infrastructure seems like the obvious choice for enterprises. However, significant challenges exist in extracting real value from the data companies already have. Data complexity along with the combination of legacy systems coupled with...
Four Things We Learned in 2020
We know it's February, but… we needed a moment. We know you did, too. It's been six weeks since the weirdest, most challenging year we've seen in a long time — a year full of tragedy, uncertainty, and a few moments of hope here and there. It's safe to say that we...
Technology and Data in Urban Design and Urban Management
During the last two decades, technology has emerged as one of the central drivers of the global economy, as well as a key aspect of our social lives and lifestyles. And now it is becoming an essential element of the urban infrastructure. It is a principle of all...
All I Want for Christmas is a Real Data Fabric
With 2020 nearing its end, many businesses are reflecting on the past year -- the good, the not-so-good, the successes, the victories, and the “oh, we still need to do that”. What became extremely clear this year through us “defining the new normal”, is that data is...
Data Fabric Is the Answer To Your Agile Dreams
Operating as an enterprise in the modern world of data can be bewildering. Startups are moving at the speed of real-time data because they can — they’re new and don’t have years of legacy systems that are both necessary and causing bottlenecks. Shifting to data in...
The Lock and Key of Data Literacy and Data Governance
Without a data-literate team, your company doesn't have a chance of becoming data-driven. "Speaking data" is one of the biggest skills in the coming years as more technical skills (think SQL or R programming) become embedded in the tools themselves, demonstrating what...
Don’t Be Fooled — Real Data Fabric Is Your Only Way Forward
As Halloween fast approaches, many people are still scrambling for that last-minute costume. As in years past, Halloween night will be filled with witch hats, clown faces, princess tiaras and cat ears. Given the continual rise in pop-culture films, Wonder WomanTM has...
Announcing: The Modern Data Company
A couple of years ago, we started working with a fortune 100 retail company in the US. They had invested 100's of millions of dollars towards data management with no measurable ROI. Basic questions like "how many customers do I have?" were not answered accurately;...
3 Reasons Enterprises Need Data Normalization
Data is one of the biggest assets enterprises have, but this valuable asset doesn't have the same precedent as other aspects of business. Businesses often don’t know what to do with their data, treating it as something that can work itself out with some finagling from...