Datawatch and Convergence Consulting Group Partner to Help Companies Master Advanced Analytics with Rapid Data Prep

Barriers to Mastering Advanced Analytics
BI used to be the sole responsibility of IT departments, but, over the past few years, the industry has seen a shift in power from IT to business users. Company executives can make unrealistic, time-sensitive requests for reporting, visualizations and analysis, and business users tasked with fulfilling these requests don't have time to wait for IT to run a report or provide access to required data. As a result of this changing landscape, the self-service analytics movement is rapidly gaining momentum - but it hasn't come without its share of challenges.

Data that provides the best analytical value has traditionally been locked away in multi-structured or unstructured documents, such as text reports, web pages, PDFs, JSON and log files. The only way for the average business user to use this information has been to manually rekey and reconcile the data, which are time-intensive and error-prone processes. Additionally, in many instances, an organization's source data is diverse, and rarely presents itself in a form that is accessible or in the format needed to perform analytics.

Consequently, business users are only relying on easily accessible data, such as relational, CSV and other standard, structured data, for analysis, and, even still, are spending the majority of their time preparing data rather than analyzing it.

Rapid Data Prep for Accelerated Analytics Success
Datawatch Monarch enables business users to overcome traditional data challenges by automating retrieval and prep processes. With Monarch, users can easily access, manipulate, enrich and combine disparate data from virtually any source. They can then quickly prepare it for analysis in visualization, analytics and cognitive tools, such as Tableau, IBM Watson Analytics and IBM Cognos Analytics, in a fraction of the time that it takes using spreadsheets and other manually-intensive measures.

Users spend less time preparing data and more time performing analysis that will result in timely, more informed business decisions and better operational processes. And, while Monarch provides the ease-of-use and agility that business users demand, it also satisfies IT's need for security and compliance, providing governance capabilities such as data masking, data retention, data lineage and role-based permissions.

"Many organizations are still falling short when it comes to advanced analytics because they don't have an effective self-service data prep solution in place," said Anthony Ciancio, VP of Analytics, CCG. "Business users need answers a lot faster than IT can deliver, and they require rapid self-service data prep that speeds time-to-insight and meets executives' expectations. With Datawatch Monarch, we're able to satisfy the demands of business users by getting quality data into their hands very quickly, while enabling organizations to make the most out of their existing BI and analytics investments."

Datawatch and CCG to Co-Host Live Webinar
Datawatch and CCG will co-host a live webinar titled "Rapid Data Prep for Accelerated Analytics Success" on Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2016 at 11 a.m. ET. The webinar will demonstrate how users can leverage tools such as Datawatch Monarch to drastically reduce data prep time by up to 80 percent, and provide best practices for unlocking a wide variety of hidden data, preparing it and speeding time-to-insight for faster, more informed decision making. To register for the webinar, click here. 

Datawatch and CCG will also be exhibiting at IBM World of Watson, which will take place Oct. 24-27, 2016 in Las Vegas. Stop by the company booths (425 and 346, respectively) to get more information on their joint partnership or to learn how self-service data prep helps organizations master advanced analytics processes.