Channel Buzz August 20, 2019 by Mark Cox
Naveego also now uses machine learning to add the ability to profile data at the edge without having to transfer it.
Naveego, which makes cloud-based Data Quality Solutions that detect and eliminate data quality issues across systems, has announced the next generation of their Data Accuracy Platform, It adds self-service Master Data Management [MDM], and an enhanced Golden-Record-as-a-Service (GRaaS) for non-technical business users.
“This is a major release of the platform, following last’s October’s major release, which repositioned and rearchitected the platform to enable Big Data,” said Katie Horvath, Naveego’s CEO. Horvath took over the 2014 startup a year ago, with founder and original CEO Derek Smith moving to the CTO role.
“The non-technical user wants to have a more active role in data management,” Horvath said. “They know what they are trying to get out of data, so they can do analytics on it. With this release, we have enabled that by making the product more self service.”
This opening up of enterprise software – the so-called democratization of data – has been a strong factor in enterprise software for the last several years, but not, Horvath said, in MDM.
“It is a trend, and we have seen it on the analytics side, but MDM has lagged behind the trend,” she said. “We are looking to bring it into this century in the data management space.”
A key to the enhanced self-service capabilities is a redesigned user interface.
“We have changed the user experience from one that was resource-oriented to one that uses widgets to focus on task flow,” Horvath said. “This makes the platform easier for the non-technical user to interact with.”
With the new interface, users can now work with the platform without even understanding what a database is or the application where specific information resides. Because the changes are significant, Horvath said that they are being phased in for users, over the timeframe of August through October.
The GRaaS makes the golden record’s single version of truth available to all applications, whether it’s CRM or the accounting system for the business user, or the data lake and data warehouse for the data analyst or scientist.
“We are a service, but we are not the repository, and we replicate into the customer’s data lake,” Horvath said. “We have always focused on the single version of truth, but the new thing here – aside from being described in non technical terms for those users – is that we have added machine learning to automate things out at the edge. We can now profile content without moving any of the data. We were at the edge before, but we didn’t do profiling and we didn’t have any automated data quality. Now our ability to profile without transferring data Is unique.”
In addition to rearchitecting their platform to enable Big Data, the other major change that Naveego has made in the last year has been the introduction of a direct customer sales component to their Go-to-Market strategy. The addition of the direct play was designed to increase Naveego’s prominence among customers and the number of verticals in which they play.
“We have been scaling up our own team both on the sales side and development, to pursue a more aggressive road map,” Horvath said.
The Go-to-Market evolved from a channel-only model to a hybrid one.
“Prior to this, we only sold through partners,” Horvath said. “We established a national sales team, and made sure that we have sales directors across the country. When I joined, we were focused on oil and gas, and since then we have expanded into other verticals like health care, financial services and insurance.”
Horvath said that they have added the direct component without creating channel conflict.
“We have learned a lot in selling ourselves that has helped partners, and we have done a couple things to safeguard them as well,” she said. “50-50 is our minimum for partners versus direct. We also don’t publish MSRP, which helps partners.”
Naveego remains committed to adding good partners.
“We are always looking to add to our partner network, both by industry and by region,” Horvath said. “Our sweet spot is any enterprise with three or more data sources. That’s where the opportunity is. Some partners are VARs and some wrap into a larger digital transformation project, but partners as a whole are excited we are making things more self service. Time to value is where we shine.”
