Data Democratization with AirQuery

About a year back, Harvard Business Review wrote about ‘4 Ways to Democratize Data Science in Your Organization’.  The article focused on the following: 

• Giving more people in your organization “easier” access to data and information
• Develop “citizen data scientists” across various departments by giving them the right BI tools
• Use data across all decision-making needs — both big and small 
• Why “Small Data” is as important as Big Data, and when business users have access to both, they are more likely to garner relevant insights (related to the problem they are trying to solve)

Data-to-Insight: In a Jiffy and without reliance on IT

Overall, data democratization holds the key to self-service analytics. Today, business users want data, information, and intelligence at their fingertips. They want to get from “data-to-insight” as quickly as possible. 

Let us say a marketing leader has a question on how discounting can play a role in sales growth. With a modern BI tool, the marketing professional can quickly pull up relevant; With just a few clicks - you must be able to visualize the correlation between revenue growth and discounts and also filter it by product category and/or geography. 

The idea here is not to make it very time-consuming. The business professional shouldn’t have to wait for assistance from the IT or data science team to access this insight. That is the value proposition of self-service analytics. The data science team would have built out data models and set up the modern BI tool to make the business user self-reliant. 

The point is: data democratization is all about giving business users the freedom to find and access data relevant to them with ease. The larger question is: Are current BI tools built for data democratization? We think not. And, that’s one of the reasons we built AirQuery. 

So, What is AirQuery? 

When it comes to enterprise data, there are lots of other layers to be mindful of - scattered data on the cloud, overwhelming volumes of information, and overworked teams. AirQuery helps you rise through these layers to reach the tip easily. With AirQuery, business users are truly empowered with infinite intelligence at their fingertips. 

Also, AirQuery is built to solve three specific issues that act as a barrier to democratizing data. 

Barrier #1: Most enterprises have too many data silos 

In any enterprise, it is impossible to avoid data silos. Data and information reside in various databases, ERPs, CRM, PLM, QMS, and other business applications. Also, data is not really democratized when there is no free flow of information across departments. Marketing and customer data may reside in the CRM, while supply chain and inventory data may be on a cloud ERP. 

Solution: No data left behind with AirQuery’s Data Pipelines 

AirQuery’s Data Pipelines can move data from 200+ data sources into your cloud-based data warehouse. To make this happen, there is no coding required. You can centralize your data into a single destination with ease, without worrying about security, governance or data quality issues. 

AirQuery’s ELT pipelines are designed for highly reliable data delivery. Our engineers have designed these pipelines to offer pre-built schemas and handle schema and API changes.

Barrier #2: Context-specific information is not easily accessible to employees

One of the biggest missing links in most organizations is that employees don’t have easy access to context-specific information when they need it. In order to garner insights, they have to wade through several reports, charts, and dashboards. Yes, data visualization tools have certainly made it easier, but it’s still too much information and users have to manually cull out what they need. 

Solution: Use Quicklets in any application to get precise, context-specific information immediately

With AirQuery’s Quicklets, you can set up a system to access information on business-critical dimensions that are relevant to your individual context. This can be done in four easy steps: ‍‍ (i) Install the AirQuery extension, (ii) Select a pre-built template or customize a template based on your needs, (iii) Drag and drop relevant fields and pieces of content to create these Quicklets, (iv) You’re all set. Use the Quicklets as required. 

The key is to identify the right business dimensions you need for your Quicklets. Once this is clear - using our Data Pipelines and Data Modeling capabilities - you can have custom-designed Quicklets for your team or department. There is no need to manually wade through realms of data reports and charts. 

Barrier #3: Most BI tools weren’t designed for self-service 

One of the reasons why BI tools aren’t intuitively self-service is because we don’t want data governance or data security issues. For data to be truly democratized, access to data must be opened up. But, obviously, not at the expense of data falling into the wrong hands. In order to ensure this, most BI tools were designed to have technical specialists acting as gatekeepers. But this is contrary to what data democratization is all about. 

Solution: AirQuery is conceptualized, designed, and built from the ground up for data democratization 

The real magic of AirQuery comes from the tool’s ability to help any enterprise set up a robust data operations framework. It helps organizations design, build and manage data pipelines. Data is then brought into a centralized data warehouse, which is extremely reliable and secure. 

Importantly, AirQuery supports both self-service datasets and IT-managed data models. This helps you abstract complex data logic and replace technical terms with business-friendly terms. Therein lies the key to self-service. 

For more information on How AirQuery Works, visit: https://www.airquery.com/how-airquery-works