3 Reasons a Cloud Data Warehouse Is Critical To Customer Analysis

The sheer amount of data gathered across any given organization is too much for the brain to comprehend, let alone for the human mind to organize and analyze. Because of this, more and more companies are prioritizing machine analysis of their customer data to derive meaningful insights that can change how their businesses think and act. From product teams developing new features that create a smoother, more enjoyable customer experience to marketing teams determining the ideal conversion path for prospects, companies thrive on this customer data.

Ultimately, this data is meaningless if it’s not built upon a reliable foundation — a single source of truth.

This is where a cloud data warehouse (CDW) comes into play. A CDW acts as the single source of truth for a company’s data, allowing all teams within the business to analyze and act on the same information. Here’s why a CDW is essential to any foray into customer analysis:

Delivering clean data

By housing all data within a CDW and connecting analytics and business intelligence tools directly to it, companies create a cleaner, more accurate view of what actions need to be taken within their business. A CDW prevents product and growth marketing teams from having to sift through multiple data repositories to mine actionable insights. This centralized source protects the integrity of an organization’s data and allows for a more actionable view of all customer data streaming in from various sources.

Multiple data sources are the norm, and to get the broadest possible picture of each customer interaction companies will need to collect data in many different ways. The CDW becomes the hub, a single source of truth where you can access structured data. Housing the same or variations of the same data in multiple places opens up opportunities to create inaccuracies within the data various teams pull to inform their decisions. Rather than referring to multiple sources to determine what actions need to be taken, it’s important to set all teams’ eyes on a single prize — a CDW.

Speeding up deep analysis

One of the biggest arguments for a CDW as the single source of truth is the opportunity it creates for deeper data analysis. Each team receives direct access to the entire customer journey as silos break down, enabling them to make more informed decisions for the business as a whole. Being able to answer deeper, more complex questions with little difficulty supercharges an organization’s product and marketing teams. If your organization employs a data team, they can focus on larger organization-wide projects rather than spending hours building ad hoc SQL queries. Customer Analytics platforms free from the constraints of SQL make analysis easy for non-technical users. A Customer Analytics platform permits product teams to pull out the “why” and “how” beyond the “what” that traditional business intelligence (BI) tools provide. Simply put, easy access to analysis allows the company to make faster, better business decisions.

Building a future-looking data stack

It has become easier and easier to build a custom CDW with platforms like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform and more. And, as the sheer volume of data streaming into brands grows, having a CDW in place to rapidly scale alongside that data will be critical to their long-term success in a way that legacy, on-prem solutions can’t provide.

We’re already seeing mergers and acquisitions within the space, like Twilio’s purchase of Segment, reshaping the data stack — and those who fail to put a single source of truth in place to house and control their data will lose out on opportunities to do more with the information they already own. As new products enter the market over the next few years, brands that have data readily available in a CDW will speed beyond those who must alter their technical infrastructure to make them work.

CDWs open up a world of new possibilities for companies looking to remain competitive in an ever-crowded business landscape. With a CDW as a single source of truth that can interact with your customer analytics and business intelligence solutions, every team has the opportunity to take real, meaningful action on the data to build stronger products and create better experiences for customers.

About the Author

Jeremy Levy is the CEO and Co-Founder of Indicative, a Customer Analytics platform for product and marketing teams. He is a serial entrepreneur and a veteran of New York City’s Silicon Alley. Jeremy Co-Founded Xtify, the first Mobile CRM for the Enterprise, acquired by IBM in 2013.  He also Co-Founded MeetMoi, a pioneering location-based dating service for mobile sold to Match.com in 2014.

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