David Menninger's Analyst Perspectives

Data is becoming more valuable and more important to organizations. At the same time, organizations have become more disciplined about the data on which they rely to ensure it is robust, accurate and governed properly. Without data integrity, organizations cannot trust the information produced by their data processes, and will be discouraged from using that data, resulting in inefficiencies and reduced effectiveness.

Based on our benchmark research on data preparation and data governance, we assert that through 2022, organizations will continue to increase trust in their data processes with data quality, master data management and other data integrity solutions.

Data integrity is incidental to many data integration software vendors’ products, but it is not central to their offering. Precisely, the evolution of Syncsort, is shining a spotlight on data integrity and making it their core focus to ensure organizations can deliver data that is trusted.

Syncsort was a long-time vendor of data integration software with particular strength in mainframe data sources and more recently big data. The company went through several mergers and acquisitions including Trillium for data quality and master data management, Pitney Bowes for location data and analytics software business, and Vision Solutions for data protection and high availability. After assembling these broader capabilities, Syncsort was rebranded as Precisely, and recently announced the introduction of the Precisely Data Integrity Suite. The suite consists of data integration, data quality, location intelligence and data enrichment capabilities, which are packaged together to make it easier to create trusted and valued data sources. The Data Integrity Suite helps simplify the collection of data related products in Precisely’s portfolio. It also helps the company focus on making it easier for customers to use these products together.

The announcement of the suite provides the logic and vision behind the Syncsort acquisitions and mergers. It also comes at a time when data integrity is more important than ever. The rebranding is a very public way for Precisely to reintroduce the company, its products and its vision to the market. They are a vastly different organization with a vastly different product set than Syncsort had just a few years ago. Rebranding can be expensive and potentially wastes any brand equity associated with the prior brand. In some cases, it can even be viewed as a marketing stunt or ploy with no real substance.

Many vendors have focused on data integration and preparation and supplemented those capabilities with data quality and master data management, but few have focused so heavily on integrity. Precisely has adopted a unique approach that centers on the integrity of data, a critical component to successful data and analytics processes. Our research shows that the top benefit organizations identify with their data preparation capabilities is improved data quality. More than half (51%) identify it as the first or second most important benefit. Poor quality or incomplete data leads to bad decisions, which in turn reduces trust in data and analytics processes.

Understanding the quality of data and trusting the data in an organization is integral to maximizing the data’s value. As organizations consider how to provide high quality, trusted data enriched with location information and context, they should evaluate whether Precisely’s approach enhances their data processes. Any organization dealing with large numbers of customers can find value in mastering this data, ensuring its quality to improve customer experiences, which in turn should result in more valuable relationship with those customers.

The company recognizes there is still more work to do in bringing the suite together and it has plans to do so. And while the company made a concerted effort to include a significant number of partnerships, it will be important to continue to develop additional partner integrations to satisfy individual customer’s requirements. Nevertheless, Precisely has done a good job recognizing a need in the market and assembling a set of assets to meet those needs. If you have not considered Precisely previously, it’s worth taking a look.

Regards,

David Menninger