Imagine you work for a company that collects immense amounts of data. The boss is happy, and so is the IT. "Big Data" or "data gold" are buzzwords that many in the company talk about with enthusiasm. What great things can be done with the collected data, successful times are on the horizon. But for all the euphoria, important questions fall by the wayside:
Collecting data is good. The more data available to a company, the better business decisions can be made, more effective analytics can be performed, etc. Big Data offers tremendous benefits in an increasingly digitized world. But it can also lead to total chaos if data is simply collected randomly. Often, data silos are being created, data is stored multiple times and redundant.
It's a good thing that the "single point of truth" approach exists as a remedy. Often also known as SPOT, Single Source of Truth or SSOT. As the name implies, the idea here is to create a single source. One source, one place where all the data of a company resides. To which all systems are connected, to which all employees have access. No chaos, more qualitative data management.
However, a Single Point of Truth not only ensures better order, a better structure of the data. Companies also benefit from significantly higher data quality and less effort in data management. Big Data can still be so great if data remains just data and its potential is lost in the chaos of multiple storage locations. At the end of the day, a single point of truth leads to better business decisions and higher profits thanks to the benefits listed and many others.
As listed in the example at the beginning of the article, many companies fall into euphoria as soon as the word Big Data is mentioned and opportunities for data collection are found. Data is often definitely the gold of the 21st century. However, unfortunately still too often a gold that remains hidden in the chaos mountains of too many data silos and co.
The practical and thoughtful application of a single point of truth is becoming increasingly relevant in times of digitalization, networking and ensures that ever larger amounts of data can unfold their full potential.
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