Enhancing Speed to Market through Self-Service | A Peek into the Business-Owned Data Integration Application with Gayatri Shrikanth, Project Head

The business-owned data integration tool was built to assist the business user in enabling self-service, and subsequently, in empowering their business. Among the many advantages of the application are its faster turnaround time, the integrated workflow with approvals, and the ability to ingest data from many types of sources and make it available in multiple target environments. (Note: the term ‘business user’ is used to refer to the client. All mentions of this term in this case study hereby refer to the same.)

Background

Business users involved in multi-national hi-tech businesses (computers and corresponding accessories) often need to combine function-specific data with enterprise data to gather insights. This process normally involves I.T, a department that helps in uploading the data. However, the uploading of data can take up to several weeks, only after which necessary tasks can be performed. In the context of this case study, the I.T head of Business Enablement at the business user’s firm approached Tesser Insights and sought a solution that can combine some platform features from Tesser to build an application to assist the business user in enabling self-service, and empower their business.

Gayatri Shrikanth, head of the project, joined us to discuss the opportunities and challenges in this project. In Gayatri’s perspective, the business-owned data integration solution was unique for several reasons. For one, the tool was an undertaking that the customer had been attempting for nearly two years, before they invited Tesser Insights to work on this project. Tesser was tasked with delivering the solution within four months; this proved to be one of the most demanding aspects of building the application. Initiated in April of 2020, the tool went live in July, a mere twelve weeks after its inception.

The most distinctive feature of this application is its enhanced agility. According to Gayatri, the previous approach to the BMT (business-managed tables) data load took three weeks or longer, and involved multiple intermediate steps and requirements, with a total time of nine weeks, including approvals. The solution by Tesser Insights created an integrated workflow that involved multiple teams, and reduced the turn-around time from three weeks to three minutes. This was accomplished by empowering the business user to accomplish these tasks through self-service, without having to seek the assistance of different departments.

Besides this, the application provided several useful utilities like a built-in DQ check and reconciliation feature, which automatically identified and flagged the data quality issues, the ability to conform to enterprise data security needs and integrated authorization and authentication. As the discussion came to a close, Gayatri summarized the tool by mentioning that it sought to help integrate tasks without the need for technical knowledge and intervention. “Everything in this solution is done within the application, without the need for intervention from other teams — the business user does not need to worry about any technical skills”, said Gayatri signing off.

Customer Feedback:

“You guys rock! We have worked with so many vendors, but you people are exceptional. So focused and detail-oriented.” “The fact that the business now has a smoother, leaner and faster way of managing BMTs, automated and allowing us to own also the set up part, is a great accomplishment…”