Top 5 Benefits of Data Integration You Need to Know

Combining different data sources has been a challenge since business systems began collecting data. Until early 1980, there was no software that supported the interoperability of different data sources. The first data integration software was launched by the University of Minnesota in 1991, with the goal of combing data from different sources into a single view. To make the data more compatible, the system used the data warehousing strategy that extracted, transformed and loaded data from various sources into a single system.

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Today’s organisations are swimming in data. They need automated, transparent and highly-secured data integration software that can make data more freely available, easier to consume and process. On top of these, they are in the search of software that allows them to access all the information they need at any time. Without any doubt, data integration serves as a backbone in this ever-changing and heterogeneous IT environment. This blog will share with you the top five amazing benefits of data integration that you need to know.

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Benefits of data integration

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The following are the top benefits of data integration:

1. Integrate data from multiple sources

Within your company, you use tons of applications, systems, and data warehouses. Nonetheless, because these data sources are fragmented and siloed; thus it’s difficult to use the full potential of the data. To gain full insights and make data-driven decisions, it is crucial to integrate all of the data sources into a single place. Once all of the data is present in a single system, it will become easier for you to put data into action.

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2. Reduce data complexity

Data complexity is the size and intercity of the data. Companies are constantly challenged by the four Vs of data complexity; Volume, Velocity, Variety, and Varsity. The complexity of data shows the level of difficulty you will experience when you prepare it for business uses. With data integration tools, you can hide the data complexity factors, streamline the connections and standardize data delivery effectively.

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3. Increase your competitiveness

Many companies out there in the market are struggling to keep with a large volume of sales and invoices. It has become very difficult for them to manage to work between multiple systems. Integrating all their data sources into a single system will make it easier for them to access all of the information without switching to multiple sources.

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4. Make data more available

Anyone in your company can easily access, retrieve, and analyse the data if it is centralised. Highly accessible data can be transformed easily as well. People will be more likely to integrate data into their projects, share the results, and keep it up to date if they have access to it. With data integration software, you can set up a central repository; all data users at the company can easily access it. This decreases the number of queries asked as well as incorrect data duplication.

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5. Increase the value of data through unified systems

Every dataset has its own strength, and we can increase its value by bringing all datasets together through a unified system. Let me present a use case, which would help you understand the advantage of having a single view of all the data we have. Consider a company that uses different data sources like emails, customer support, Twitter feeds, etc., to generate insights that assist them in making better business decisions.

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The data come from these data sources, typically unstructured and messy, making it difficult to generate important insights that benefit the company’s growth. With data integration software, their employees can create a single point of contact by combining data of varying nature (structured, tabular, unstructured, etc.) and can view them as a single entity. Hence, this approach helps them to easily access the data and identify its quality issues which ultimately results in more accurate and valuable data.

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Key takeaway

In today’s ever-growing business environment, having data in various data sources still stand in a way of business growth. The success of any business depends on how accessible the data is, and how well it is transformed and managed. If different data sources can’t share their data in real-time to create a unified view, management won’t able to make a data-driven decision. Hence, we can say that if you have data integration software you can make your data far useful than it was previously.

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