How to make better business decisions using a single source of truth?

Single source of truth (SSOT) is a term used for when all company data is kept and cultivated in one place. The idea behind it is that this data is accessible to everyone within the company, so important business decisions can all be based on the same information. This approach prevents different definitions and values being used within silos that would lead to confusion and unnecessary discussions. 

When your company adopts a single source of truth approach, you are simultaneously able to empower different people in multiple teams to leverage data, while keeping control over the definitions and values they base their initiatives on. By doing this, you prevent people getting lost in multiple versions of the same file as you create one single truth within the company.

How does SSOT help to make data reliable?

Unreliable and subpar data will lead to subpar business decisions. A single source of truth feeds the same data into different data analytics and science applications that are used for decision making. When the entire company is working from a SSOT, data sources will always be up to date and of high quality, enabling high quality decision making.

SSOT has several benefits, including:

• No more duplicate data
• No more version control issues
• No more validating records and data types
• Improved communication and productivity
• Improved data warehouse and intelligence

Because SSOT creates one central place to collect data, it makes people trust their business’ information architecture. By preventing people from doing their own data extracting and storing, the company saves peoples time, leaving more time for data analytics, science and innovation.

What does SSOT solve for your organisation?

Creating a single source of truth gives your business the certainty that its employees are working with standardised and relevant data throughout the whole organisation. Without it, data exists in silos and every team operates independently from one another. 

When an organisation obtains a SSOT, it enables its business leaders to make decisions based on data from its entire organisation, instead of its separate data silos. This makes the whole process more efficient, helps you work smarter and finish the same responsibilities in a shorter period of time.

Every aspect of an organisation benefits from a SSOT. From finance to IT, and from sales & marketing to operations. The insights a SSOT delivers to an organisation give you the advantage you need in today’s competitive market.

How to obtain a SSOT?

To obtain an SSOT, you need to collect all data components from different systems and sources across your organisation to your primary single source of truth location and then make it available and usable to the people that want to use the data. This is often referred to as your Extract, Load and Transform (ELT) stack. 

You need three things for this:

• Connections to extract data from your source systems in a reliable and scheduled way;
• A data lake and/or warehouse to store all data and provide access to data users;
• Data models that make the raw data from sources usable and join and clean data where needed.

On top of this, you want to consider the scalability of your ELT stack, as usage might grow over time and show ups and downs. A cloud setup is the current best practice for obtaining a scalable data stack as it allows you to scale up and down, while also providing the most secure environment to host your company's data.

Lastly, the need to implement data observability might seem like something for the future, but becomes important quicker than you might think. Data observability is the umbrella term often used for all features and functions that allow you to monitor your company’s data for governance, lineage, freshness, schema’s and distribution.

How can Eyk help?

Eyk lets you connect your cloud applications, automatically extracts the data and sets up a cloud data warehouse with your provider of choice. It then manages and optimises that warehouse, creating your company’s SSOT.

On top of that, the Eyk data platform also transforms your data through pre-built data models and even joins different sources to each other if you want, so you can easily make the connections you need between different data points. This gives you the ability to relate your customer data from sources like Google Analytics and your CRM system to the actual financial results logged in your accounting software and combine it into one trusted SSOT.

With Eyk, all organisations, regardless of engineering resources and skills, are able to set up a data platform, develop a data culture and innovate with their data.

Want to know more?

Do you want to make the most of your organisation’s marketing and switch to data-driven marketing? 

Register for a free trial or get in touch with our sales team. We will happily look at your company’s specific needs and goals, and answer any questions you might have.