Panoply Blog: Data Management, Warehousing & Data Analysis

Get Stacked: Designing a High Performance, High ROI Data Stack

Written by An Bui | Jan 30, 2018 10:34:28 PM

Your company sits on an immense treasure trove of data, but tapping this data and accessing its value can be a challenge. 

The complexity of legacy systems is compounded by internal teams that need various combinations of system data in easily understood reportsright now.

That leaves your data team with the pressure of creating, prioritizing, revising, and interpreting data from various systems for various stakeholders. Without a manageable, well-built data stack, you have a recipe for restricted growth and missed opportunities, as well as soaring operational costs.

So how do you design a data stack that checks the functionality boxes without bringing your finance and IT departments to their knees?

If you build it, it will come...eventually

As with everything IT-related, there’s always the option to “build it yourself." But the sunk costs of the “build it” approach can leave you in the red before you even send your first query.

Custom IT architecture requires researchdetermining what does and doesn’t work for your businessand research requires time and human resources. Once you define the requirements, you then need to develop a solution, shifting the cost center from research to vendor managementdealing with a different group of people and costs for each component of your stack.

Ongoing costs are another consideration. Without the human resources and skills on hand to manage your solution, you must hire or contract. That translates into not just the expense of salaries, but the need to wrangle applications, interviews, evaluationsmore time added to the project’s completion.

Even once your solution is constructed and your team is in place, you to wait before it begins returning value. Like any new process or solution, you have to know if and how this new stack works. Prep work, integration management, testing, bug fixesall are critical processes, but all add time to the project completion schedule while simultaneously driving IT resource costs.

Simple means savings without sacrifices

The flip side of the custom-architecture approach is the “buy it” approach. A proven pilot shortens time to value and minimizes operational and technical risk. Plus, it gives your business the agility of data-driven insight without the overhead and heavy investment required by the “build it” option.

The most effective strategy for the “buy it” approach is to choose data solutions that work well together and produce big results for your team. Choosing the right tools relieves the pressure on your IT department, positioning them less in a data creation role and more as a strategic internal business partner.

The result? Everyone’s happier:

  • The data team because they can get their hands on the data they need, when they need it.
  • Business users because they’re receiving actionable information with quick turnaround.
  • Leadership because their teams are proactively and efficiently gaining access to the data they need to succeed.
  • IT and Engineering because they’re able to get their heads above water.

While there's no magic bullet to data success, Panoply is a great choice for organizations that want faster time to insight with less overhead. Learn about the results Panoply can bring to your team with a personalized demo.