The phrase “data is the new oil” has become the favorite business transformation cliché of the past 10 years. The truth is that data in its raw form is about as useful for decision making as oil is for propelling a car. Data preparation is key to making data useful and involves the process of collecting, cleaning, blending, and ultimately making it available for the intended use – whether for analytics or another application.

While IT-centric data prep has been around for decades, self-service data prep tools that are designed specifically for business users and analysts is new. Despite the benefits and the new ease of use features, not all self-service data prep solutions are equal when it comes to dealing with real life data types, complexity and volumes. Dealing with the Data Explosion Traditionally, digitized data whether collected or captured via some application, has predominantly been about collecting “records” of our business and providing useful instrumentation of our business process

Source: datanami.com
Author: Piet Loubser