Despite a seemingly healthy green glow in your dashboards and exemplary regulatory reports, you can’t help but sense that something is amiss with the data. If this feeling rings true for you, don’t worry – it may be an indication of bigger issues lurking beneath the surface.

 

You’re not alone. In this blog we’ve taken a look at some of the most influential factors that indicate you’ve got a data quality problem. Why not use these handy pointers as a starting point to dig deeper?

1. You’re getting negative feedback from your internal business partners.

Data is the backbone of any business, so it’s no surprise that a lack of satisfaction from internal partners can often be traced back to data issues. From ensuring quality datasets are delivered at scale, through to solutions aimed towards empowering your colleagues with access to necessary information and context – there are many proactive steps you can take when aiming for better performance in this area. Taking action now will ensure everyone has what they need; fuelling success and transforming negative feedback into positive progress.

2. People keep sending you data in Microsoft Excel.

Now, we all love Excel. It’s brilliant. It’s made data handling a far more widespread expectation at every level of an organisation. But it does not give any way of source or version controlling your datasets, and is massively prone to its inherent limitations in scale and size. In fact, its ubiquity and almost unilateral adoption means that all your fabulous data lake investments are being totally undermined when things like remediation files, or reports, get downloaded into an Excel sheet. If you’re seeing Excel being used for these kinds of activities, you can bet you’ve a data quality problem (or multiple problems) that are having a real effect on your business.

3. Your IT team has more tickets than an abandoned car.

If your business teams aren’t getting the data they need, they’re going to keep logging tickets for it. It’s likely these tickets will include:

• Change requests, to get the specific things they need;
• Service requests, for a dataset or sets;
• Issue logs because the data is wrong.

More than an identifier that the data’s not great, this actually shows that the responsibility for accessing and using the data remains in the wrong place. It’s like they’re going to a library with an idea of the plot of the story, and the genre, but they can’t actually search by those terms so they’re stuck in a cycle of guessing, of trial and error.

4. Conclusion

What these indicators have shown is that identifying data quality issues isn’t just for data teams or data observability tools to own. The ablity to recognise that something isn’t right is something that sits just as importantly within business lines, users and teams. 

What to do next is always the key question. Ultimately, data quality can be improved if the right processes and tools are put in place to collect, cleanse, and enrich data. There are several challenges that need to be overcome when dealing with bad data. These challenges include:

• Identifying data quality issues,
• Deploying adequate resources and time to resolve them, and
• Investing in advanced analytical tools.

To do this effectively, enterprise-wide data governance is essential as it provides an actionable framework for businesses to continuously manage their data quality over time. Although implementing changes across an organisation may seem daunting at first, there are a few simple steps which organisations can take today that will help them quickly improve their grip on data quality.

A very important first step is the establishment of a data quality control framework, and helpfully we’ve written about this in the following blog. Happy reading!

 

 

The post How You’ll Know You Still Have a Data Quality Problem appeared first on Datactics.

In this blog post, our Head of Marketing, Matt Flenley, takes a closer look at the latest trends in data and information quality for 2023. He analyses predictions made by Gartner and how they’ve developed in line with expectations to provide insight into the evolution of the market and its various key players. Automation and AI are expected to play a central role in data management, and their impact on the industry will be examined in detail. Additionally, the importance of collaboration and interoperability in a consolidating industry will be highlighted, as well as the potential impact of macroeconomic factors such as labour shortages and recession headwinds on the implementation of these trends. Explore the impact of Data profiling, Data mesh, Data Fabric, and Data Governance on the evolving data management landscape in this analysis.

A recent article by Gartner on predictions and outcomes in technology spend took a fair assessment of market predictions its analysts had made and the extent to which they had developed in line with expectations.  

Rather than simply a headline-grabbing list of the way blockchain or AI will finally rule the world, it’s a refreshing way to explore how a market has evolved against a backdrop of expected and unexpected developments in the overall data management ecosystem and beyond. 

For instance, while it was known pretty widely that the lessening day-to-day impact of the pandemic would see economies start to reopen, it was harder to predict with certainty that Russia would invade Ukraine to ignite a series of international crises, including cost-of-living, provision of food and energy and a new era of geopolitical turmoil long absent from Europe.  

Additionally, the impacts of the UK’s decision to leave its customs union and single market with its biggest trading partner were yet to be fully realised as the year commenced. The UK’s job market has become increasingly challenging for firms attempting to recruit into professional services and technology positions. Reduced spending power in the UK’s economy, combined with rising inflation and a move into economic recession will no doubt have an impact on organisations’ ability and willingness to make capital expenditures.  

In that light, this review and preview will explore a range of topics and themes likely to prove pivotal, as well as the possible impact of macroeconomic nuances on the speed and scale of their implementation.  

1. Automation is the key (but explain your AI!) 

Any time humans have to be involved in extracting, transforming or loading (ETL) of data, it costs a firm time and money, and increases risk. It’s the same throughout an entire data value chain, wherever there are human hands on it, manipulating it for a downstream use. Human intervention adds value in complex tasks where nuance is required. For tasks which are monotonous or require high throughput, errors can creep in. 

A backdrop of labour shortages, and probable recession headwinds, means that automation is going to be first among equals when it comes to 2023’s probable market trends. Firms are going to be doing more with less, and finding every opportunity to exploit greater automation offered by their own development teams and the best of what they can find off the shelf. The advantages of this are two-fold: freeing up experts to work on more value added tasks, and reducing the reliance on technical skills which are in high demand.  

Wherever there’s automation, AI and Machine Learning are not far behind. The deployment of natural language processing has made strides in the past year in automating the extraction of data, tagging and analysis of sentiment, seen in areas such as  speech tagging and entity resolution. The impact of InstructGPT and even more so ChatGPT, late in 2022, demonstrated to a far wider audience both the potency of machine learning and its risks.  

Expect, therefore a massive increase in the world of Explainable AI – the ability to interpret and understand why an algorithm has reached a decision, and to track models to ensure they don’t drift away from their intended purpose. The EU AI act is currently working its way through the EU parliament and council, providing the proposed first regulation of AI systems enforcement using a risk-based approach. This will be helpful for firms both building and deploying AI models, providing guidance and application of their use. 

2. Collaborate, interoperate or risk isolation 

In the last few years, there has been significant consolidation across the technologies that collectively make up a fully automated, cloud-enabled, data management platform. Even within those consolidations, such as Precisely’s multiple acquisitions or Collibra purchasing OwlDQ, the need to expand beyond the specific horizons of these platforms has remained sizeable. Think integration with containerisation solutions like Kubernetes or Docker, or environments such as Databricks or dbt, where data is stored, accessed or processed. Consider how many firms leverage Microsoft products by default, so when they release something as significant as Purview for unified data governance, organisations which already offer some or most aspects of a unified data management platform will need to explore how to work alongside as-standard tooling. 

The global trend towards hybrid working has perhaps opened the eyes of many firms outside of large financial enterprises to cloud computing, remote access and the opportunities presented by a distributed workforce. At the same time, it’s brought their attention to the option to onboard data management tooling from a range of suppliers and based in a wide variety of locations. Such tooling will therefore need to demonstrate interoperability across locales and markets, alongside its immediate home market.  

3. Self-service in a data mesh and data fabric ecosystem 

Like Montagues and Capulets in a digital age, data mesh and data fabric have arisen as two rival methodologies for accessing, sharing and processing data within an enterprise. However, just as in Shakespeare’s Verona, there’s no real reason why they can’t coexist, and better still, nobody has to stage an elaborate, doomed, poison-related escape plan. 

Forrester’s Michele Goetz didn’t hold back in her assessment of the market confusion on this topic in an article well worth reading in full. Both setups are answering the question on everyone’s lips, which is “how can I make more use of all this data?” The operative word here is ‘how’, and whether your choice is fabric, mesh or some fun-loving third option stepping into the fight like a data-driven Mercutio, it’s going to be the decision to make in 2023.  

Handily, the most recent few years has seen a rise in data consultants and their consultancies, augmenting and differentiating from the Big Four-type firms by focusing purely on data strategy and implementation. Data leaders can benefit from working with such firms in scoping Requests for Information (RFIs), understanding optimal architectures for their organisation, and happily acknowledging the role of a sage – or learned Friar – in guiding their paths.  

Market trend-wise, those labour shortages referenced earlier have become acutely apparent in the global technology arena. Alongside the drive towards automation and production machine learning is a growing array of no-code, self-service platforms that business users can leverage without needing programming skill. It is wise therefore to expect further increases in this transition throughout 2023, both in marketing messaging and in user interface and user experience design. 

4. Everyone’s talking about data governance 

Speaking of data governance, a recent trend has been to acknowledge that firms are embracing that title in order to do anything with data management. Whether it’s to improve quality, understand lineage, implement master data management or undertake a cloud migration programme, much of this falls to or under the auspices of someone with a data governance plan.  

The rise of data governance as a function in sectors outside financial services has increase as firms become challenged to do more with their data. At the recent Data Governance and Information Quality event in Washington, DC, the vast majority of attendees visiting the Datactics stand held a data governance role or worked in that area.  

As a data quality platform provider it was interesting to hear their plans for 2023 and beyond, chiefly around the automation of data quality rules, ease of configuration and needing to interoperate with a wide variety of systems. Many were reluctant to source every aspect of their data management estate from just one vendor, preferring to explore a combination of technologies under an overarching data governance programme, and many were recruiting the specialist services of data governance consultants described previously.  

5. It’s all about the metadata 

The better your data is classified and quantified with the correct metadata, the more useful it is across an enterprise. This has long been the case, but as in this excellent article on Forbes, if anything its reality is only just becoming known. Transitioning from a passive metadata management approach – storing, classifying, sharing – to an active one, where the metadata evolves as the data changes, is a big priority for data-driven organisations in 2023. This is especially key in trends such as Data Observability, understanding the impact of data in all its uses and not just in where it came from or where it resides.  

Firms will thus seek technologies and architectures that enable them to actively manage their metadata as it applies to various use cases, such as risk management, business reporting, customer behaviour and so on.  

In the past, one issue affecting the volume of metadata firms could store, and consider being part of an active metadata strategy, was the high cost associated with physical servers and warehouses. However, access to cloud computing has meant that the thorny issue of storing data has, to a certain extent, become far less costly – lowering the bar for firms to consider pursuing an active metadata management strategy. 

If the cost of access to cloud services was to increase in the coming years, this could be decisive in how aggressively firms explore what their metadata strategy could deliver for them in terms of real-world business results. 

6. And a bonus: Profiling data has never been more important 

Wait, I thought this was a Top 5? Well, on the basis that everyone loves a bit of a January sale, here’s a bonus sixth!

Data profiling is usually the first step in any data management process, discovering exactly what’s in a dataset. Profiling has become even more pronounced with the advent of production machine learning, and the use of associated models and algorithms. Over the past few years, AI has had a few public run-ins with society, not least in the exam results debacle in the UK. For those who missed it, the UK decided to leverage algorithms built on past examination data to provide candidates with a fair predicted grade. However, in reality almost 40% of students received grades lower than anticipated. The data used to provide the algorithm with its inputs were as follows: 

• Historical grade distribution of schools from the previous three years 
• The comparative rank of each student in their school for a specific subject (based on teacher evaluation) 
• The previous exam results for a student for a particular subject 

Thus a student deemed to be halfway in the list in their school would receive a grade equivalent to what the previous halfway pupils achieved in previous years.  

So why was this a profiling issue? Well, for one example, the model didn’t account for outliers in any given year, making it nigh-on impossible for a student to receive an A in a subject if nobody had achieved one in the previous three years. Profiling of the data in previous years could have identified these gaps and asked questions of the suitability of the algorithm for its intended use. 

Additionally, when the model started to spark outcry in the public domain, profiling the datasets involved would have revealed biases towards smaller school sizes. So while not exclusively a profiling problem, it was something that data profiling, and model drift profiling (discovering how far has the model deviated from its intent) would have helped to prevent. 

This is especially pertinent in the context of evolving data over time. Data doesn’t stand still, it’s full of values and terms which adapt and change. Names and addresses change, companies recruit different people, products diversify and adapt. Expect dynamic profiling of both data and data-associated elements, including algorithms, to be increasingly important throughout 2023 and beyond. 

And for more from Datactics, find us on Linkedin, Twitter or Facebook.

The post Top 5 Trends in Data and Information Quality for 2023 appeared first on Datactics.

April is nearly over and we’re back to share with you exciting news about events, new content, and panel appearances!

Datactics has partnered with MANTA

Datactics’ customers will benefit from the new partnership in addressing complexities around data in motion, by leveraging MANTA’s lineage capabilities alongside Datactics data quality and matching expertise through their Self-Service Data Quality platform.

Read more about this brand-new partnership here.

John Carroll is sharing on a panel on 12 May

John Carroll, Head of Customer Success at Datactics will be sharing on a panel on 12 May at America Square Conference Center in London.

This panel will tap into how to establish a strong foundation for your ESG data strategy to ensure quality, governance and lineage.

The panel also includes:
Niresh Rajah, Managing Director, Head of Data, RegTech & Digital Assurance Practice, Grant Thornton LLP (US).
Rathi Ravi, ESG Data Specialist, Vanguard.
Siddhartha Sharma, ESG Data Specialist, Capital Group.
Lorraine Waters, Chief Data Officer, Solidatus.

Get the details and register.

Fiona contributes to the latest Canadian RegTech Newsletter

The Canadian RegTech Association board member Matt Fowler has published a blog post in the latest Canadian Regtech newsletter in partnership with Invest Northern Ireland – Americas.

In this blog, Fiona Browne talks to Matt about the focus that Datactics is putting on explainability and transparency, and how they have focused on augmenting their technology with machine learning and AI techniques.

Fiona was one of the industry experts who contributed to the Association’s white paper: Moving Beyond Principles – Addressing AI Operational Challenges.

You can read the full piece here.

Women In Tech was great to attend!

 We had a fabulous evening last night at Europa for the Women In Tech Awards.

Thanks to Sarah Travers for hosting. It was great to be in a room with such talented women.

We are excited for next year already! Well done to all those shortlisted and those who won.

The awards recognised and celebrated women who innovate, challenge and embrace technology, and showcased inspirational individuals who have achieved great success within the sector.

Keaton and Conor are mentors in HackTheHub

The UK & Ireland’s No.1 Hackathon Series: HackTheHub is back to reconnect the tech community with a brand new set of challenges using AI & Data.

At Datactics we are delighted to be sponsoring this hackathon. We have two fantastic mentors from the software development and machine learning teams at Datactics: Conor Hackett and Keaton Sullivan – both coding stars!

More information about the agenda will follow in due course.

Register here.

Brendan’s first in-market trip under Grad To Export

From catching up with the Irish-American business network at the Bank of Ireland St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in New York, to attending the Data Coalition‘s annual RegTech Data Summit in Washington, to being treated to the finest Irish hospitality and innovative drinks in the world famous Dead Rabbit NYC. 

The Irish community continues to make strides in all walks of life in America; whether it be in the world of technology, business or hospitality, and we at Datactics are excited to continue playing our part in contributing to this wonderful story. We are excited to get back over in the next number of weeks!

Let’s connect!

To keep up to date with Datactics, follow us across our social media channels orcheck out our Datablog, where we post all events we are attending or contributing to – https://www.datactics.com/datactics-datablog/

The post Fortnightly Round up: A brand new partnership and upcoming panel appearances appeared first on Datactics.

Earlier this month we exhibited at Security and Policing 2022. The week began with our stand being led by Jackie Devine and Sean McConnell who were engaging in conversation around what our nationwide, private cloud-based system can do to help with crime classification and reporting. The week then concluded with representation from other members of the team Shauna Leonard, Alexandra Collins, and Paul Burns who chatted with attendees about our data quality and matching capabilities and the work we have done with the UK Police Forces over the past number of years.  
 
It was great to be present in person, especially after the past number of years. The event overall proved to be very productive, and we have spent the time since the event catching up with all the contacts we made there, exploring how we can work to support their data quality, data governance, and data management journey.  

We took some time to catch up with the team who attended to hear what they had to say about the event. 

“The S&P show was a super event – we met so many organisations with Data Quality problems who were interested in our offering and wanted to know more. Meeting in person was so much more worthwhile and there was a great buzz of activity at the venue.”

Jackie Devine, Public Sector Account Management

“As the official UK Government global security event, Security & Policing 2022 provided an insightful view into the steps that the Home Office and third-parties are taking towards improving our national security, supported by regional and local authorities. 

To successfully achieve the most appropriate deployment of resources and implementation of services, the highest levels of data quality are essential in order to provide reports and statistics which are accurate, timely and relevant. 

This is why the National Data Quality Improvement Service (NDQIS) plays a key role in providing police forces with the tools that they need to monitor key crime metrics and to identify potential areas of concern within their respective constabularies.”

Paul Burns, Senior Data Engineer

“It was interesting to talk with many different suppliers and to see the variety of products and services available to our preserve our national security. I found it fascinating to meet with other teams within the Home Office to identify ways the National Data Quality Improvement Service (NDQIS) can assist with data quality issues.”

Shauna Leonard, Senior Data Engineer

“It was interesting to see all of the different vendors I didn’t know existed and I enjoyed engaging with other vendors to understand how our product could fit their requirements/benefit their business needs.”

Alexandra Collins, Product Owner

“I am delighted to have been able to attend in person the 2022 Security & Policing event where it was great to engage with representatives from a wide spectrum of industries and government departments. The success that we and our policing colleagues have had with addressing data quality issues in crime data using the NDQIS resonated with attendees and we look forward to working closely with them to understand how Datactics can help achieve their data quality driven goals”

Sean McConnell, GovTech Client Success Lead

The event provided us with the opportunity to share our data quality tooling designed with people, entity and asset data automation in mind. With fresh collateral we were more than ready to articulate the key features of our nation-wide, private cloud-based system for crime classification and reporting. We are proud to announce that our work has also recently seen us recognised in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Quality Solutions. We always appreciate an opportunity to showcase the capabilities of the product and how we differentiate from the traditional solutions in the market, particularly how we focus the solution to the business user. 

If you missed our stand and would like to know more about how Datactics has reduced the number of records needing manual review by nearly 80%, please reach out to Jackie Devine or Sean McConnell. They would be more than happy to engage with you further. 

And for more from Datactics, find us on Linkedin, Twitter, or Facebook.

The post Datactics Exhibit At Security And Policing 2022 appeared first on Datactics.

Shortlisted at the Insider Northern Ireland Dealmaker Awards 2022

We are delighted to find out this morning that we have been shortlisted for
Private Equity/Venture Capital Deal of the Year at the Insider Northern Ireland Dealmaker Awards 2022 for the Investment in Datactics by Par Equity, Kernel Capital, |Invest Northern Ireland NI, and others.

We are looking forward to attending the awards ceremony on 3rd March at the Europa Hotel.

New blog series focused on ESG Data!

The widespread availability of quantitatively and qualitatively improved ESG data is essential in complementing traditional fundamental analysis. 

We are encouraged by the increased participation and investment made by larger data providers which, although still immature, should support those asset managers looking beyond the aggregated scores, intent on create their own ESG ratings. 

In subsequent blogs in this series, you can expect to read about ESG reporting, the use of alternative data sets (or alt data), the impact on financial returns and the consequences for ESG investing.

Read John Carroll‘s full blog here as he unpacks the “green tape” around ESG Data & Regulatory Standards.

Datactics Builds New Solutions and Business on Basis of Flagship Self-Service Data Quality Platform

“As well as driving innovation through partnership, Datactics continues to invest in augmenting and automating its platform to the greatest extent possible. The platform is deterministic, rules-based, and incorporates ML to reduce manual processes and offer more options than are available using traditional data management and quality solutions.”

Our new break analysis service is designed to provide insight into data in terms of the criticality of breaks. It adds a dashboard to the Datactics data quality platform and uses the Neo4j graph database to show how data breaks are related. Remediation can then be prioritised and data quality and KPIs can be tracked over time.

Read more here as Stuart Harvey and Fiona Browne unpack more of the plans for 2022 and reflect on the strong performance in 2021.

We are excited to be recruiting for our next cohort Data Consultants for the Datactics Academy

Our Academy is designed to help recruits become a success in data and tech, whether they have a computer science background or not.

Beginning with a 2 week intense training period, the course lasts for 12 months. Instead of studying via university of college, the Academy trainees learn through lived-in experience working at the organisation.

If you would like to know more about these fantastic opportunities, visit our website.

Welcome to the team! Welcome to the team Michael Mc Ferran and Oran Neeson.

We are delighted that they have joined the Development team. We hope you both settle in well.

We are looking forward to working with you.

Let’s connect!

To keep up to date with Datactics, follow us across our social media channels or check out our Datablog, where we post all events we are attending or contributing to.

The post Fortnightly Round up: Exciting Award news and more! appeared first on Datactics.

In this blog, Victoria chats about her experience in technology so far, her apprenticeship, the skills she has been acquiring, and of course, her experience working at Datactics. 

Hi Victoria, what stage are you now at with your apprenticeship? 

I have been in Datactics now for 15 months! I am now at the stage with my Belfast Met Course in Networking and Infrastructure that I have finished all OCR (Oxford, Cambridge, and RSA Examinations) class units, but I still have some NVQ work to complete. Prior to starting the apprenticeship, I was always extremely interested in Technology. Back when I was at school, I did not have a specific interest in IT at all, but the apprenticeship has allowed me to gain the equivalent of 2 A-Levels and provided me with the theoretical basis to then put into practice in my day-to-day role. 

What has the Belfast Met course taught you? 

The course took me through the very basics of networking initially and quite quickly within my role at Datactics I became heavily involved in user support, which is a critical requirement, particularly in an ever-growing business. From the get-go, I have been able to take the lead on several projects and as I have grown into my role, I am now able to use my knowledge gained on the course to react quickly to problems and help to solve connection issues. Datactics have really helped me take this theory and put it into practice which enabled me to progress further and opened up more opportunities for additional accreditation during the course too. 

What excites you about a career in IT moving forward? 

For me, it is the level of opportunities that are available. I am keen to continue to build my career in the tech world and I am looking into security exams that I could potentially take to help me progress my career. My degree background was in Counselling, and I was also working in a call centre, but the pandemic really encouraged me to change my career direction as by then I knew I wanted to pursue a career in Technology. I saw the opportunity come up, applied and it was definitely the right move for me. 

What would you say to anybody considering undertaking an apprenticeship? 

I would say to research into the different options available. Belfast Met has an incredible range of apprenticeships on offer (some of which I had never heard of prior to joining Datactics!). Whatever age or stage you are at it’s never too late to consider changing your career direction. Prior to undertaking the apprenticeship, I had zero experience in the tech world. The role at Datactics compared with the course challenged me from the beginning and without the support of my amazing team, I wouldn’t have been able to do it! 

How has being a part of the Datactics team been? 

Hugely supportive! The level of experience within the team is inspiring. There are also a great number of learning opportunities on offer to you. I am looking forward to getting involved with speaking at a local Tech event in the next few months (something I never thought I would do!). I have been able to learn first-hand how to work in a crisis, manage difficult requests, and problem solve and Datactics has been a great place to learn. I am excited to see where my career goes next! 

Happy National Apprenticeship Week! Thanks, Victoria for chatting with us. You are a real asset to the team. 

The post “The level of experience within the team is inspiring…” Victoria Wallace: National Apprenticeship Week appeared first on Datactics.

Hi Shauna! Perhaps as we begin, you could tell me a bit about how you got into your role, what was your educational background?  

I studied at The Open University completing a Bachelor of Science in Computing and IT. I was focused on Web Development whilst I was University but upon becoming keen to undertake a student placement, I discovered Datactics. I had no idea what the company did, and data engineering was not familiar to me at all! I did, however, meet with Stuart Harvey (CEO) and Josh Piper (then Data Engineering Manager) to find out more about the role.  

A month went past and then I got the call to say that I had secured the role and I was thrown into the crazy world of Data, a world I have been in ever since! One of the most attractive elements of the company was that it was only 20 people at the stage of me joining, with me being 15^th on the payroll. This has allowed me very much to carve my own career path and grow with the company. 

Prior to Datactics, I was working in admin for a pharmacy, I even began studying a Business-related degree, but I switched to Computing and IT – the best decision I ever made! 

The Open University was an amazing place to study. It allowed me to study and work at the same time which allowed me to build practical skills as well as studying and gaining the knowledge. Datactics has a strong link with Open University which was how I uncovered the opportunity with Datactics. From the beginning of my placement, I knew it was a place I would be able to grow, develop and learn. If anybody would like to find out more about my experience with OU, I would be happy to chat with anyone.  

What initially attracted you to the world of technology? 

I knew that the Tech world was a great sphere to enter as it was full of opportunity. I remember when I joined, I was given a piece of advice that stuck with me: to find your niche and become a specialist within that niche. This was something I very much took on board. Moving across to the GovTech vertical of the business, working on public sector projects and programmes, has allowed me to focus on work that is challenging but has a far-reaching impact. I now have an area within our GovTech work that I am the specialist in, which has led me to being promoted to Senior Data Engineer, a role I am proud to take on, and am excited to see what I can do with it. 

Shauna, as you have just reached your four-year anniversary at the company, could you tell me a bit about the biggest passions in your career and beyond? 

I enjoy working in a company that has afforded me the opportunity to grow in my role and expand my remit. I have spent a lot of time working on-site over in England, which has helped me to get further into the weeds of client demands and expectations. Since I joined, I have had the opportunity to work on a variety of projects and most recently been exploring the idea of sharing some of my technical knowledge at local events, something which I wouldn’t have done years ago but am ready and raring to try! The colleagues within my team and beyond are remarkably inspiring and I enjoy being able to work alongside and socialise with colleagues from a variety of teams. Being in a company of 60, the company still retains the small company feel with synergies forming naturally, but even so a sharper focus on different key areas is prevalent.  

What are your passions outside of work? 

I have always been someone who is naturally creative, and I am a visual person as well as a logical thinker. For this reason, I do enjoy quizzes and being a part of a team. I have also found a love for cycling this year which has been encouraged by my involvement with Runners and Riders. This club within Datactics has hosted many challenges which encourage physical exercise, with the most recent challenge being bike-related. In my spare time, I also enjoy bouldering and you may well find me up a Mourne Mountain on a Saturday (though I am not sure how many of them I have actually climbed). Finally, most recently I have taken up CrossFit, which has been a great way to build up physical strength and it has been great to join alongside other members of the Datactics team! This year I would like to get back into painting as it was something I loved to do particularly in my school days.  

What would you like to achieve in the next 5 years? And for our recent recruits, what piece of advice would you give them? 

From a career perspective I would love to continue to grow in my speciality. I would love to eventually lead a team within GovTech and expand my specialist knowledge into other government clients. I have never forgotten the advice I was given to find your niche and develop it and I am pleased to say that on my 4^th anniversary in the company I have definitely found that! As the company grows, the solutions develop, the projects broaden I am excited to be able to grow with the company. 

For anybody just beginning their career with Datactics, my advice would be to ask lots of questions, seek that niche, learn as much as you can, and enjoy working for such a great company. I have made some incredible friends at Datactics and have had some brilliant managers and mentors that have helped me to get to where I am today. Datactics is a great place to be, and I would encourage anybody with an excellent work ethic, positive attitude, and ambition to work for a company that really cares about its people, to apply. 

Thanks, Shauna, for taking the time to chat with us. It was great to be able to hear about your passions and your career journey to date. We look forward to hearing more from you about all things GovTech very soon. 

And for more from Datactics, find us on Linkedin, Twitter, or Facebook.

The post Meet Shauna: Senior Data Engineer at Datactics appeared first on Datactics.

January is nearly over and we’re back to share with you exciting news about events, new roles, new content, and exciting growth news!

It’s nearly the end of the third week for our new Data Consultants that have joined as part of the Datactics Academy!

Upon joining they received a Datactics Welcome Pack which included a Madlug C.I.C bag. We are very excited they have joined and look forward to the great work they will do with us.

We are actively recruiting for some exciting positions at Datactics including a Solutions Engineer, Delivery Manager – FinTech, and a Senior Software Engineer. A Datactics welcome pack could have your name on it!

If you would like to know more about these fantastic opportunities, visit our website.

Read about how we assisted UK Government and Law enforcement 

Find out how we helped the firm to get a handle on its data quality in a matter of weeks to avoid risks to the business, and before it began to store (‘persist’) the product master data in its Master Data Management (MDM) system.

Like every organization with huge amounts of data, the client’s principal business challenge was to implement a system by which large volumes of crime reports logged by UK law enforcement agencies could be analysed and classified according to government standards, to create consistent national reporting for specific crime types.

To read more, check out the full case study here.

We have a great opportunity that could be just for you!

In response to customer demand and company growth, we are actively recruiting a Junior Project Manager to join us on our adventure.

As part of the project management office (PMO), supporting Senior Project Managers, this role plays an integral part in the coordination of project activities to meet the specific needs of Datactics’ customers, as well as to support the smooth running of internal projects.

Whether you are someone keen to start a new career in project management or someone who currently works in a project team and would like more responsibility this role could be for you.
We are really keen to chat with those who would be interested in this role. If you would like to find out more visit our website for more info.

Brendan has completed his blog series

Brendan McCarthy has written a blog series taking a look at some of the key resources that many consider to be critical when making buyer decisions.

In his most recent piece he takes a look at the key insights we derived from Gartner’s Magic Quadrant, also highlighting market trends from the buyer and seller side. Read the most recent piece here.

Let’s connect!

To keep up to date with Datactics, follow us across our social media channels orcheck out our Datablog, where we post all events we are attending or contributing to – https://www.datactics.com/datactics-datablog/

The post Fortnightly Round up: We have a great opportunity that could be just for you! appeared first on Datactics.

The previous two editions of this blog series provided an overview of the Gartner Magic Quadrant from the perspective of someone relatively new to the world of data management, defining what it really means for a scaling business like Datactics to be recognised by Gartner, as well as drawing attention to the core strengths of the Datactics product, as highlighted by Gartner analysts. With this knowledge, this blog will focus on the key insights we derived from this research, also highlighting market trends from the buyer and seller side. 

The data quality solutions market continues to mature at a rapid pace, with vendors from across the space innovating their offerings by making more impactful use of metadata and AI to solve customer problems and cater for increasingly complex use cases. 

Data Quality had traditionally been mandated to adhere to regulatory compliance and governance requirements and reduce operational risks and costs. However, as referenced in Gartner’s research, senior executives in businesses across the globe are recognising the necessity for Data Quality when amplifying analytics for more accurate insights and data driven decision-making.  

As per Gartner surveys, by the year 2023 it is estimated that over 60% of organisations will leverage machine-learning enabled data quality technology to increase automation of tasks and provide accurate recommendations, significantly reducing bottlenecks and manual effort often associated with tasks for Data Quality improvement. Additionally, by 2024, over 50% of businesses will implement modern Data Quality solutions to better support enterprise-wide digital transformation and business initiatives. Firms are engaging with vendors from the Magic Quadrant to gain competitive advantage and ultimately achieve their goals. 

One of the key trends taken from this year’s Magic Quadrant is the shift towards Self-Service Data Quality. The era of requiring heavy programming and IT resources to perform Data Quality tasks is changing, and no-code platforms will continue to rise due to their accessibility and usability. Datactics were the only vendor in this year’s Magic Quadrant accredited with this feature as a key strength, as they continue to champion the movement of no-code functionality in Data Quality. Additionally, firms are seeking to centralise Data Quality controls and improve interoperability by simplifying the ease of integration with adjacent software tools such as MDM, metadata and data governance.  

This research indicates that to fulfil the market demand for simplified data quality management, despite the increasingly complicated data landscape, vendors must offer a product that goes beyond simply fixing data errors, to helps clients actively manage their data right across the enterprise.  

If you would like to open a conversation about any of the topics discussed in the previous three blog articles, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn or send me an email at brendan.mccarthy@datactics.com. 

The post Gartner Blog 3 – Key Insights and Takeaways appeared first on Datactics.

2022 is well underway now and we’re back to share with you news about our Academy, events and exciting growth news!

Stuart Harvey features in the Belfast Telegraph in ‘Leaders in Business’ section

Datactics started life as a Queen’s University spin-out in the early 2000s, but now, has grown into a fast-growing tech firm employing more than 60 staff and working with big name, global, blue chip clients – from financial services to media.

Our CEO, Stuart Harvey discusses life at Datactics in this piece by Belfast Telegraph. He explores the focus of the company, the last financial year, and the importance of innovative work as the team grows.

“𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘤𝘶𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘸𝘵𝘩 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘱𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵. 𝘞𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 60 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘥𝘥𝘦𝘥 30 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘧𝘦𝘸 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘤𝘶𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘓𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘰𝘯 𝘴𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘦, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦, 𝘢𝘥𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘉𝘦𝘭𝘧𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘲𝘶𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴.”

Read more here.

Datactics Academy officially launches!

This week our brand new Data Consultants joined the company as part of the Datactics Academy.
Welcome to the team Conal, Sarah, and Aaron. We are looking forward to working with you.

We’re pleased to be the gold sponsor at the Data Management Summit London 2022!

Join us at this event to hear from leading data practitioners and innovators who will share insights into how they are pushing the boundaries with data to deliver value with flexible but resilient data-driven strategies.

Space will be limited for this premiere event – you can register now.

Matt recently spoke with FF News | FinTech Finance

At the tail end of last year, Matthew Flenley discussed how we have managed to connect the dots between people and data in a business context during a chat with FF News | Fintech Finance.

Datactics have worked to not only increase the visibility of data between organizations, but have taken the step further to collaborate on projects with various firms and organizations.

Watch the full chat here.

We have a great opportunity that could be just for you!

In response to customer demand and company growth, we are actively recruiting a Solutions Engineer to join us on our adventure.

This role plays a critical part in the Datactics customer lifecycle. Presales is central to the customer acquisition process, helping them understand how the Datactics platform can solve data management problems in major international banks, insurers, and other financial services firms.

We are really keen to chat with those who would be interested in this role. If you would like to find out more, reach out to Courtney Lewis or visit our website for more info.

Brendan has written a new blog series

Brendan McCarthy has written a blog series taking a look at some of the key resources that many consider to be critical when making buyer decisions.

In his first piece he takes a look at Gartner’s Magic Quadrant.

In his second piece he examines the specific feedback that Gartner analysts provided for Datactics, highlighting the core strengths of the platform and the reasons why we were recognised as a Niche Player in the Data Quality Solutions market.

Let’s connect!

To keep up to date with Datactics, follow us across our social media channels orcheck out our Datablog, where we post all events we are attending or contributing to – https://www.datactics.com/datactics-datablog/

The post Fortnightly Round up: The Datactics Academy launched this week! appeared first on Datactics.

In the previous edition of this series, we explored the Gartner Magic Quadrant from the perspective of a newcomer to the data management industry. We defined what the Magic Quadrant really is, what it means for an aspiring scale-up like Datactics to be recognised by Gartner, as well as highlighting the critical capabilities and criteria that analysts use to qualify and position vendors in the quadrant. This blog will examine the specific feedback that Gartner analysts provided for Datactics, highlighting the core strengths of the platform and the reasons why we were recognised as a Niche Player in the Data Quality Solutions market. 

Gartner assert that augmented data quality powered by metadata and AI, is a key dynamic driving the data quality solutions market. This was recognised as one of the key strengths of the Datactics platform; our AI Server contains a diverse range of AI functionalities, including prebuilt models for entity resolution, ML-based matching and outlier detection. These innovations significantly reduce manual effort and increase accuracy of results, whilst maintaining transparency and some degree of human intervention. 

One of the compelling differences between Datactics and other vendors in the quadrant, as detailed in the Gartner Peer Insights forum, is our platform’s ease of use and implementation. Reviewers praised Datactics for their sophisticated and user-friendly workflow which requires minimal consulting services to implement and configure. It is a no-code platform that requires no programming experience to become proficient in rule development and management, reducing reliance on IT resources. Analysts also noted the ability of the Datactics platform to seamlessly integrate with third-party services for quick and easy connection. 

In conjunction with this, Gartner analysts noted Datactics’ Self-Service approach to data quality. Our platform addresses the increasing industry demand for business-led data management initiatives, accommodating non-technical users to become skilled and accomplished with the tool. Datactics was the only vendor in the quadrant recognised for this attribute, exemplifying why we are displacing industry giants in some environments.  

Additionally, Gartner also commented on Datactics’ current rate of market visibility, growth and vertical focus. Datactics is scaling rapidly, having reached 60 staff in 2021 and with a long-term goal to be the data quality tool of choice across a range of industries and geographical locations. In 2022, we expect to have feet on the ground in the APAC and North American markets and continue to have conversations with sectors outside of financial services and government. 

The final instalment of this series will focus on some of the key findings and insights that we took from the Magic Quadrant, as well as highlighting key trends that Gartner have predicted for the future of the data quality solutions market. 

Follow up with Brendan on LinkedIn here.

The post How did Datactics rank in the Gartner Magic Quadrant? appeared first on Datactics.

Last month, we at Datactics were delighted to announce that we had been recognised in this year’s edition of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for ‘Data Quality Solutions’.

This is a remarkable achievement for everyone associated with the company, as we make our first appearance on the quadrant, gaining industry recognition for our sophisticated technology and acknowledgement for the people who have helped drive Datactics to the fore of the market. Datactics continues to punch above its weight and thrive in the role of the underdog, challenging industry giants and displacing them in certain environments.

But what really is ‘The Magic Quadrant’?

To answer this question, we turned to Brendan McCarthy, to give a view of someone relatively new to the data management ecosystem and the part that technology analysts such as Gartner plays in influencing buying decisions and technology development.

For those who are unfamiliar, the Gartner Magic Quadrant provides a graphical depiction of different types of technology providers and their position in fast-growing markets. Gartner research identifies and analyses the most relevant providers based on specific criteria that analysts believe to be crucial for inclusion.

For ‘Data Quality Solutions’, Gartner has highlighted the importance of features such as; the delivery of core data quality functions for profiling, cleansing and matching data, supporting multiple data domains and use cases and owning a geographically diverse customer base.

Between ten to fifteen of the most prominent vendors in each given market are then selected and judged on product capabilities, diversification of services and market presence. Based on this criteria, selected firms are then allocated into four distinct categories: Leaders, Visionaries, Niche Players and Challengers.

Datactics represented one of the ‘Niche Players’ in this edition of the quadrant, due to our specialism in pure-play data quality and matching, and the value we add to clients in specific industries and verticals. As we continue to innovate our product and scale internationally, we expect Datactics to appear in the ‘Challenger’ and ‘Leader’ segments of the quadrant over the coming years.

The next installment in this series will focus on specific feedback that we received from Gartner, showcasing the core competencies of the Datactics platform and the key strengths that our users have highlighted.

Follow up with Brendan on LinkedIn here.

The post Gartner Magic Quadrant Blog 1 – What is the Gartner Magic Quadrant? appeared first on Datactics.

Datactics has won ‘Best Data Quality Analysis Tool’ at A-Team Group’s Data Management Insight Awards 2021. 

For the third year running, Datactics has been recognised for its business-user focused technology at the A-Team awards, which focuses on leading providers of data management solutions, services and consultancy to capital markets participants. Nominees for the awards were voted for by clients and financial users in the data management space, with the winners decided by the A-Team’s Editorial Team and Advisory Board. The notable awards, now in their ninth year, celebrate industry-leading solutions across a number of data management categories, from best sell-side and buy-side enterprise data management platforms, to data governance, data quality, and KYC on-boarding solutions.  

Datactics CEO Stuart Harvey said, 

“Winning the award for Best Data Quality Analysis Tool is extremely valuable to us, as we continue to innovate and develop our data quality solutions to meet the demands of clients across financial services.  

“We’ve seen significant growth within the Data Management market in the last year, with more organisations wanting to modernise their data infrastructure and embrace data quality solutions. This is where Datactics adds value to organisations, as our Self-Service Data Quality platform empowers subject matter experts to measure and fix their data themselves, without having to rely on IT departments.  

“Having recently made it into Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for the first time, we’re delighted to be further recognised for our Self-Service Data Quality platform by the A-Team and would like to thank all those who voted for us.” 

Angela Wilbraham, CEO of A-Team Group, which hosts the Data Management Insight Awards said, 

“It has been fantastic to see such a high calibre of entries in our Data Management Insight Awards 2021. There are some really deserving winners and we congratulate Datactics on winning Best Data Quality Analysis Tool and for their contribution to the financial data management industry.” 

About Datactics: 

Datactics provides business user-focused, no-code data quality and matching tools helping financial firms gain value from their data and reduce regulatory risk. Its award-winning platform integrates with multiple data sources, governance, and lineage systems with intelligent automation. It allows Chief Data Officers and senior data leaders to measure, report and fix their data, and match across multiple internal and external sources and systems. Using AI, the platform significantly reduces the manual effort required to make decisions, with full transparency. For more information or to book a demo please contact us. 

For more information on how Datactics’ Self-Service Data Quality platform can add value to your business please contact Kieran Seaward. 

And for more from Datactics, find us on Linkedin, Twitter or Facebook.

The post Datactics wins ‘Best Data Quality Analysis Tool’ at DMI Awards 2021 appeared first on Datactics.

Data Matching has a huge part to play in every element of data management, whether in maintaining data standards for regulatory compliance or in perfecting data for digital transformation and actionable business intelligence.

In this blog, Jamie Gordon delves into the wider implications of data matching and the need for different match strategies.

Data Matching is a fundamental element of master data management, data governance and data quality. It is one of the key requirements of a technology-driven solution to allow for data to be compared, patterns to be identified and discrepancies to be flagged. Data matching also helps to enable greater standards of accuracy whilst keeping irrelevant information to a minimum. 

For example, a retail bank might use data matching to understand customer habits in order to build better cross-selling relationships with them. In a government setting, a department could use data matching technology to create a single view of citizens to support vulnerable people. On the compliance side, financial institutions risk losing vast sums of money through fines by having large volumes of messy data. 

The truth is that nowadays, every organisation is built on its data assets – whether it realises it or not. The problem that matching tries to solve is knowing that two ‘entities’ are, in fact, the same ‘entity’. 

Where data matching technology helps

Data matching technology can be extremely low-latency, which means that organisations can perform millions of matches within seconds and remove manual effort which in contrast often takes days, weeks or even months. Often, companies can be unknowingly wasting resources by using out of date data. This can be remediated by using match tooling to assist with maintaining records across various databases and reducing the presence of duplicate records. 

How does data matching technology work?

There are many ways to perform data matching. Frequently, the process is based on a matching algorithm or a programmed loop, where each piece of the data set is compared and matched against each piece of the other data set.  

The data needs to be sorted, or blocked, into similar-sized blocks with the same attribute. These should be attributes that are unlikely to change, such as names, dates of birth, colour, or shape. Typically this data can be referred to as ‘master data.’ 

Then there are different match strategies to be used depending on the data being matched. Names, for example, are often matched phonetically, and very often firms need to employ translation or transliteration capabilities – where data is matched across languages – to identify matches that have been recorded in (for example) Arabic and English. Matching algorithms can also be supported by the use of AI and Machine Learning (AI/ML), to identify patterns within and across datasets which could be matches. Employing multiple match strategies is increasingly becoming the choice for leading firms who understand the importance of their data assets.

How to choose a matching strategy

IT and business leaders need to ask the question: What is the most sustainable process for matching to ensure the highest level of precision and accuracy? Being able to understand the business context, and employing data quality tools to ensure the underlying data being matched is fit for purpose, are two such building blocks of an effective match strategy decision. The appropriateness and reliability of AI/ML models, as well as the purpose of the matching exercise, are two further elements which must be borne in mind in any matching project.

To have further conversations about how Datactics is helping data leaders to match individuals and entities against combined UK, EU and US sanctions lists, please book a quick call with Kieran Seaward.     

Sign up here to try out our fuzzy-matching, transliteration and phonic matching capabilities in our free-to-use Sanctions Match Engine.

And for more from Datactics, find us on Linkedin, Twitter or Facebook.

The post Why is Data Matching important to an organisation? appeared first on Datactics.

Hot on the heels of Datactics’ recent announcement concerning new funding from Invest Northern Ireland, Matt Flenley, Head of Marketing, writes about the company’s exciting plans for expansion.

We were delighted to share the news from Invest NI, as it demonstrates both their commitment to home-grown tech companies and our own story of business success. The latter comes from the kinds of client we’ve been working with over the last few years – major international blue-chip organisations, some of the biggest firms in financial services and information management, and with a cornerstone programme for policing in the UK, NDQIS.

All of this has been secured through the hard work and energy of 60 talented and innovative people, getting the firm from a small 15-person office behind Victoria Square when I joined in 2017, to its current HQ near Belfast’s iconic Waterfront Hall. The new roles we’re now advertising, supported by Invest NI, are designed to keep the foot down on that growth story, take us to the next stage and deliver even more to our loyal clients.

The variety of technical and client-facing roles should appeal to a wide range of people. We’ve always said we want to work with great people, and if potential employees are reading this, thinking they might well be passionate about a career in data, they should absolutely get in touch with us. On our website can be found stories from a number of our team, spanning technology, delivery, project management, and more, which should help encourage people to take the plunge and explore a career with Datactics.

You can check out the brand new, exciting roles here.

If you would like to hear more from Datactics, find us on Linkedin, Twitter or Facebook.

The post New roles help fuel growth at leading Belfast software firm appeared first on Datactics.

We are investing £2.3 million into the business, through Research and Development (R&D), skills development, and the creation of 18 jobs. 

We are pleased to announce this investment today and that Datactics has been selected as a Platinum Partner for R&D by Invest Northern Ireland. Our Machine Learning Group led by Fiona Browne spends its time looking at the practical applications of Machine Learning in relation to data preparation, data quality, and matching. Our aim is to uncover real-world business benefits of this exciting technology that will reduce the manual effort in improving data quality and increase accuracy with regards to matching which we then make available to our RegTech, FinTech, and GovTech clients via the Datactics platform. 

At Datactics, we have incredibly strong senior leaders, managers and team leads. A few of them wanted to share their thoughts on the brilliant news: 

 “Invest Northern Ireland’s ongoing support has been fundamental in helping us get to where we are today. The R&D project will use ML to develop new analytics functionalities for our Datactics Data Quality platform. Invest NI’s in-market teams have given us great advice on how to expand in GB and the US, and to enter new markets like Japan and Singapore. By creating 18 jobs, investing in technical, digital and sales skills, and with our new Data Academy for graduates, we will be able to expand our team’s capacity and expertise to secure new sales in these markets.” 

Stuart Harvey, CEO

“Businesses thrive with AI. It can automate financial forecasting, giving them greater visibility of their future finances and in turn empowering business owners to make better decisions and take actions to achieve their ultimate goals. At Datactics we are proud to be augmenting our data quality platform with fully explainable AI and Machine Learning, removing the risk of being unable to tell why a model has behaved in a particular way. Research and Development by Datactics echoes strongly with Gartner’s view of an augmented data quality future, something we’re seeing more demand for from our clients – whether for example in AI-powered entity matching, or in the inferring of data quality rules in intelligent data discovery.” 

Dr. Fiona Browne, Head of Sofware Development and Machine Learning

“Working with Invest NI to support our business ambitions helps us to accelerate our development, recruit additional key people, and play our part in an ever-expanding Northern Ireland tech ecosystem. Securing funding is just one way in which Invest NI is benefitting our fast-growing business.” 

David Steele, Head of Finance

“We’re very excited about the prospect of our forthcoming Data Academy, one of the initiatives being supported by this funding from Invest Northern Ireland. Belfast is seeing strong growth in the tech jobs market, and Datactics’ partners in the universities and further education colleges are helping us to secure talented people who are well-aligned to our company values of Ambition, Passion, and Integrity”. 

Elspeth Flenley, HR and Corporate Communications Manager: 

You can read more about this incredible news in the full piece written by Invest NI here. 

The post Thoughts from the team on our exciting Investment and R&D news appeared first on Datactics.

Belfast Fintech company Datactics is investing £2.3million in its business, through Research and Development (R&D), skills development and the creation of 18 jobs. 

The Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) spinout provides data quality solutions to the financial services sector and central government, using its Datactics Data Quality platform to rapidly measure, match, report and fix data assets.

Once all are in place, the 18 roles will contribute over £700,000 of additional annual salaries to our local economy.

George McKinney, Director of Technology and Services, Invest NI

Stuart Harvey, CEO of Datactics, said: “We’ve seen increasing demand for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) across the Fintech and Regtech sectors. We’re using this £2.3million investment to take advantage of this growth opportunity which will help us to increase our visibility on the global stage by expanding our team, innovating and driving export growth.

“Invest Northern Ireland’s ongoing support has been fundamental in helping us get to where we are today. The R&D project will use ML to develop new analytics functionalities for our Datactics Data Quality platform. Invest NI’s in-market teams have given us great advice on how to expand in GB and the US, and to enter new markets like Japan and Singapore. By creating 18 jobs, investing in technical, digital and sales skills, and with our new Data Academy for graduates, we will be able to expand our team’s capacity and expertise to secure new sales in these markets.”

Invest NI has offered Datactics £347,601 of support towards the creation of the 18 jobs, R&D and skills development. Job opportunities include software and AI developers, support engineers, and sales and management positions. Five of the roles are in place.

Datactics has also undertaken a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with QUB to extend the capabilities of its data quality applications and develop new knowledge-driven analytics.

Invest NI’s in-market teams have given us great advice on how to expand in GB and the US, and to enter new markets like Japan and Singapore. 

Stuart Harvey, CEO, Datactics

George McKinney, Director of Technology and Services, said: “Thanks to our dynamic Fintech cluster, Northern Ireland is leading the way in international financial services solutions. As we have continually supported its business journey over the years, I have enjoyed watching Datactics grow and succeed in this sector.

Read the full piece written by Invest NI here.

The post Datactics invests over £2m with plans to grow exports and create 18 jobs appeared first on Datactics.

Data Management techniques and technologies are progressing, and data is becoming increasingly important to businesses to ensure that organisations make decisions that are both accurate and informed. As more and more firms are seeking to reap the benefits of using data to keep up with competition, firms that choose not to take advantage are finding themselves falling behind, as stated by Forbes. 

For Data to be useful it needs to be of a high quality. The stronger your data is the more you will get out of it. Data that is incomplete, incorrect, duplicated, or redundant is commonplace within business. It can be a result of human error, siloed tools, fragmented hangovers from past technology or misinformed data strategy. 

If you base a decision on bad data, you’re likely to make the wrong choice. A research piece by MIT Sloan Management Review has pointed out that bad data represents a sizeable 15% to 25% of revenue for companies – this is hugely impactful and needs to be reduced. 

New technologies are increasing the importance of data and its quality. We have seen the increase of technologies such as artificial intelligence and automation having enormous potential, but success with such technologies largely depends on the quality of the data put in. Machine Learning, for example, requires large volumes of accurate data.

The stronger the data that enters a machine learning algorithm, the better those results will be. A recent study by New Vantage Partners, highlighted the rise in data volumes is significantly driving increased volumes of investment in AI and cognitive learning. 

We know that Data is becoming increasingly critical to the operation of firms. What needs to be understood is that data shouldn’t be treated as separate from their other functions. With a rise in issues with compliance regulations are accordingly evolving and developing.

Compliance is virtually impossible to showcase if your data is disorganised or poorly maintained. It’s now become way beyond essential that companies manage their data effectively.  

To have further conversations about how Datactics is helping data leaders demonstrate to the business why data quality is important, please book a quick call with Kieran Seaward.   

If you would like to hear more from Datactics, find us on Linkedin, Twitter or Facebook.

The post Why is Data Quality Important appeared first on Datactics.