If you’re not sure what you’re looking for from your data management solutions, it’s harder to select a system that’s just right. Here’s the Goldilocks approach to choosing the right data management software.
Goldilocks knew a thing or two about getting what she wanted. She could easily have settled for the salty porridge, or the hard chair, or the lumpy bed, but she kept looking until she found something that was exactly right for her. Admittedly she was also a housebreaking kleptomaniac, but we will park that for now and focus on the positives.
The thing is, Goldilocks knew what she was looking for right from the beginning. She knew how she liked her porridge, what kind of chair was the right fit and what bed would help her get to sleep.
When it comes to data management solutions, it’s not always that easy. So many organizations fall into the trap of selecting software or system that isn’t quite right for what they need, because they’re not entirely sure what it is that they’re looking for in the first place. How can you stop this from happening to your business and decide on a data management solution that’s going to support your data strategy – and commercial goals – long into the future?
Here, we walk you past all of the wrong reasons to choose a data management solution, to help you find a system that is just right for your strategy.
This platform is what everyone else has
What’s right for your competitor might not be right for you. If you want to differentiate your business with data-driven actions, then jumping on your industry’s latest data bandwagon may not be the right answer. You need to look at what you want to do with your data: taking a different approach could unlock exciting opportunities that allow you to innovate with data, not just keep up with the crowd.
This platform sounds exciting
Data’s acronym economy is great for generating a buzz around new products and services, but it’s also distracting businesses from their core data objectives. When a new acronym appears, it can be so tempting to pivot towards this exciting new offering, but if you’re not ready for it – or it’s not really relevant to your goals – it will end in disaster. AI is a good case in point: it’s such an alluring concept, promising automations, instant insights, an almost ‘hands-free’ approach to securing data outcomes, but if you haven’t already got a strong data management strategy in place, it’s pointless.
This platform is what one person wants
Just because one person wants to select a platform or software, that doesn’t mean it’s the right one for the business. You need technology selection to be a collaborative process, with all the right stakeholders on board before you buy, not just one isolated team or technology lead. Even if a CTO or CIO or CDO feels without a shadow of a doubt that this is, technologically speaking, the best option, they need to get buy-in across the business for it to be a success. Without it, the project will face resistance from the start, making for a much more challenging implementation.
This platform will help us find direction with our data
If this is your reason for choosing a data management solution, stop your search and take a big step back. Your data management software is there to help you achieve your commercial goals with data: it can’t define what those goals are. Implementing data technology without a clear directive will only generate disappointment, as you have nothing to measure success against, and no way to tell whether you’re moving in the right direction.
This platform is in the top right-hand of the Gartner Magic Quadrant™
It might be called the Magic Quadrant™, but it can’t magically match you up with your perfect data management solution. Just because a vendor is Gartner’s top right, it doesn’t mean that they are the right solution for you. You need to understand what the axes on the graph mean to make sense of the information, as Amplifi’s Mike Evans explains. “A lot of the positioning comes down to vendors’ ability to execute ‘at scale’ and vision for their suite of products. A smaller vendor that has one really interesting product, but hasn’t yet been deployed in lots of organizations and doesn’t have a full suite of solutions, is unlikely to appear in the top right. You might rule out some of the best and most innovative products by focusing only on the ‘leaders’.” It’s one of the reasons why Gartner themselves advocate for partner-led selection and implementation.
This platform will fix our data quality problems
It won’t. There’s no technology on the planet that can fix your data quality problems. If you have data quality issues, or poor data governance, you need to fix the cultural reasons behind them before – or as part of – your data management technology implementation.
This platform is just right for our data strategy
Bingo. This should be the only deciding factor in your search for data management solutions. With a clear data goal, a clear roadmap of how to get there, and a clear remit of what you need from your technology to help you on that journey, you can choose a data management solution that’s just right for your business – but you don’t need to find the answer to all of those questions on your own. At Amplifi, we don’t just help our clients select the right technology and implement it: we help them discover the truth about their data, from defining their data goals and introducing data governance, to migrating their data and integrating their new software.
In our latest guide, we extract the truth from data fiction, helping you to demystify data and get real commercial results from your data investments, ‘The Truth About Data‘, download it below!
