Maximizing Analytics ROI

Transforming Data to Actionable Intelligence with Self-Service Data Analytics.

Do You Speak Data Prep?

Some time ago, we asked the question, “Do you speak data governance?” because everyone needed governance, but no one seemed to have the same definition for it. And now we’re talking about the evolution of data preparation. Here, the quandary isn’t whether everyone understands data preparation, it’s who’s doing it, how quickly, and how well. The term “data preparation” has evolved as fast as the tools for the task, and those who continue to use outdated analytics tools that rely on technical resources will fall further and further behind the competition. And organizations who aren’t making their data work for them will cease to exist.

Data preparation is the process of gathering, combining, cleansing, structuring and organizing data so it can be analyzed as part of data visualization, analytics and machine learning applications. Sound complicated? Traditionally, it was, with technical tools that required coding expertise and other specialized skills that could only be performed by a select few. These were typically data scientists, working within the confines of IT departments. Enterprise access to data and analysis went through them. They fielded all requests, preparing and analyzing data and providing results to users. While not a perfect solution, it worked. Requests came in, reports and results went out.