Adaptive Information: Transforming Your Data to Perform in Any Environment 

Even with full control over strategic direction, process and technology, many organizations struggle to manage their data effectively. Recent research finds that just 24% of executives view their companies as data-driven, and only 13% believe their organizations are delivering on their data strategy. 

There are several factors driving this trend.  

• Data comes from many sources and domains—there’s product data, vendor data, customer data, operational and logistics data, market data, and much more.  
• With so much data coming from so many directions, maintaining data hygiene becomes a huge issue. Incorrect, out of date or inconsistent data leads to bad strategy and ineffective processes, but keeping it all clean, organized and up-to-date is a tremendous task, especially when managed manually. 
• Internal governance and process enforcement create structural and political challenges as different functions of the business have varying and sometimes competing interests in how data is controlled and utilized. 

Managing data just the way you need it 

But as tremendous as these obstacles are, overcoming them is worth the effort. A smarter, more strategic approach to data unlocks a variety of valuable advantages: 

Agility and responsiveness 

Smarter data management provides a reliable ‘golden record’ for essential data across your organization, enabling faster insights. Stakeholders across the organization can directly access, manage, and interact with master data, enabling decisive action. 

Innovation and adaptability 

A centralized source for data enables strategic and tactical innovation across the business, from Product to Operations to sales and more. When internal teams can access consistent, dependable data on demand they’re able to more quickly vet and develop new ideas and turn them into reality. 

Efficiency 

A streamlined approach to data means fewer errors, faster insights, and less effort spent on menial tasks. It paves the way for automation and governance, freeing up your resources to be focused on strategic, analytical and creative work instead of manual data handling. 

The key to securing a more strategic internal approach to data lies in having the right tools and policies in place to flexibly serve differing needs across the organization while maintaining standards for how data is created, added, shared and used. Domain-specific technology such as Product Information Management systems can be highly effective in governing and harnessing specific kinds of data. For broader, more comprehensive data regulation across the organization, cross-domain solutions powered by Master Data Management is appropriate. 

Equipping your data to thrive in the market 

The challenge with data is that it doesn’t always get to hide within the comfortable, controlled confines of your curated internal environments. 

At some point it will have to leave the nest and be able to fly on its own through new and unfamiliar environments. Your thoughtfully formatted and organized data needs to be sent to partners, vendors, retail marketplaces and more, all of which have their own particular approach to how data is processed, managed and transformed. 

Once you send data out to a recipient, you lose some amount of control over how it looks and behaves. 

This handoff is a painful, but inevitable, one for many brands. Sending data to third parties is often how it reaches the customer. Images, multimedia, information and product specs define their customer experience, brand perception and sales.

To make things more complicated, every data destination is different, with its own unique requirements. Whether they’re a retailer, marketplace, regulator, or database, they will inevitably transform and repurpose that data for their own systems and needs. 

So brands are faced with a dilemma; how can you maintain and preserve data that serves your own internal needs, while also keeping it ready to perform to its fullest potential when it “leaves the nest?” 

The key to unleashing your data: integrated Syndication

The first and most important step in ensuring your data will thrive in the market is ensuring you have a good delivery system to get it there. 

Syndication, the automated delivery of data from a supplier to a recipient, enables businesses to quickly send important information to external endpoints like a distributor or retailer.  

But not all Syndication solutions are the same. Every endpoint ‘ingests’ and transforms data little differently, so good Syndication requires data to be sent in the right format so it can be taken in, used and displayed in the best possible manner. That requires a provider trusted by recipients to transform and translate data appropriately for their endpoint so it can be used immediately in whatever context it’s needed. 

Traditionally, Syndication has been a one-way street where data flows one time from supplier from recipient. But this model is quickly becoming insufficient, as both parties are realizing the importance of swift feedback for verification or notifications when data is identified as incomplete, incorrect or out of date.  

Syndication needs a feedback loop where confirmations and feedback can be delivered back and forth for mutual benefit. The Syndication provider must not only technologically capable of bidirectional data transfer and communication, but also is trusted to rigorously vet data quality and deliver it appropriately so it’s always ready for use when received. 

Trust, but verify 

Even once you’ve trained your data to fly, it’s only natural to want to keep an eye on it after it has left the nest. You want to make sure it’s thriving, and make adjustments if it’s not performing as expected when syndicated. 

For this, real-time analytics is the best solution to keep an eye on your data in the market. Analytics can automate data and content monitoring at scale, empowering you to ensure all public-facing data used by your recipient partners is accurate, matches with your latest internal records, and fits their requirements. 

Analytics can even alert you when there’s errors or problems that the recipient isn’t even aware of, ensuring you can protect your brand and maximize sales opportunities. 

Your data your way – and their way 

The competing requirements for your data pose a complex challenge. How can you keep it optimized and ready for performance internally while also ensuring it can perform its best when you send it out in the marketplace? 

You need it all—a solution that enables data management the way you need it, but also delivers it to recipients in the way they need it. 

Syndigo’s unique suite of capabilities does it all, enabling you to fully control and harness data your own way with fully configurable PIM and MDM that let you make, and enforce, the rules in your ecosystem. And Syndigo is trusted by the world’s largest recipient network to Syndicate your data in the way they need it, so it can get used and brought to market as quickly as possible. 

Finally, Syndigo comes with all the analytics tools brands need to monitor data and content performance anywhere, from internal systems to the digital shelf.