Who Benefits the Most from a Modern Data Warehouse

These days, it seems like everyone is talking about the modern data warehouse (MDW). Just look at Snowflake’s IPO; clearly, this is more than just some sort of passing fad. MDWs like Snowflake are established players, and enterprise organizations that are serious about their data are getting on board with them in a hurry.

But let’s say you’re not quite there yet. Your data’s still scattered around in various storage systems, and you’re using your ESP’s marketing cloud as the workspace where you build audiences and campaigns. You’re wondering if a modern data warehouse is really the right move for your company.

To help you better understand the answer to that question, we’re taking a look at which sorts of organizations will benefit the most from investing in a MDW.

You’ve invested in tools that can access data directly

One of the biggest hurdles that trips up a large number of organizations that invest in an MDW with high hopes for what it can do for them is that, even if they bring on a MDW, that may not be enough if their other tools aren’t set up to help them take advantage of it. OpenTable is a good example of this.

They had massive amounts of constantly changing data, and they were smart to know they needed to do more to invest in making it accessible and trustworthy across the organization. So they brought in Snowflake and a CDP with the hope of really putting their data to use in new and exciting ways.

But the ESP and CDP both forced them to make copies of their data and ship it out to them in order to build campaigns and visualize the data they were working with. This led to huge amounts of data lag due to all the syncing they were having to do, greatly reducing flexibility and their ability to examine user engagements.

Once they brought in MessageGears, though, everything changed; because we could connect directly into Snowflake with a native integration, there were no more data syncs. They brought the ETL process entirely within Snowflake, speeding up all their processes and allowing them to see their data a lot sooner. They also reduced costs across the board by cutting out all that copying and shipping of data to unnecessary third-party remote vendors.

Helping to get brands onto a modern data warehouse is a common theme with MessageGears customers. We’re currently supporting a top quick-serve restaurant brand on a migration to Amazon Redshift, providing them with the direct data access they’ll need to take full advantage of their data.

You have lots of data

While there are definitely small- and mid-market companies that could benefit from a MDW, the more data you’re collecting, storing, and accessing on a regular basis, the more value you’re likely to get from it. Yes, you’ll pay more as your storage needs increase, but the potential for benefit also scales pretty well along with that.

That’s at least partly because of how challenging the storage requirements become as you accumulate more data, and the incredible difference it makes having a solution like Snowflake handle it for you. You can quickly see enhancements to performance, analytics, and access once you’ve consolidated into a MDW. And you’ll probably see cost savings over the long term if you’re dedicated to making it work.

Also key is that, the more data you have, the more all of this should matter to you. That’s not only because of the sheer needs inherently involved in housing and using all that data, but in the customer expectations that come along with your company’s size and resources. People are going to expect you to have things buttoned up, and investing in an MDW is a sign you’re getting serious about meeting those expectations that your competition in the marketplace probably is already meeting.

Your data is siloed and dispersed

While having a massive amount of data might be the biggest indicator that you could benefit from a MDW, silos and dispersion matter quite a bit too. If you have a ton of data but it’s all consolidated and well organized in an in-house or other third-party warehousing solution, you may not see quite as much benefit as those whose data is all over the place.

You’d likely still see a performance and analytics upgrade, and you could save resources since you wouldn’t have to maintain your own system anymore, but your organizational data access may already be pretty good.

If, on the other hand, your data is stored across multiple storage locations, with some departments pulling from one set of data while others pull from another, and there’s no cohesion across the organization, the MDW is going to be a life saver.

It gives you a highly performant, modern system to move all your data into, giving everyone access to the same set of data so that you’re all on the same page. This helps not just Marketing but the CRM team and I.T. to serve the organization and your customers better with more thorough, up-to-date, secure, and accurate data.

Takeaways

If you don’t invest in tools that give you direct access to the data you’re putting so much work into consolidating into a MDW, so much of the payoff is going to be lost. If you’re thinking about a MDW and want to ensure you’re maximizing the impact for your organization, let’s have a conversation about what MessageGears can do to ensure you’re set up for success as well as you can be.