Key Takeaways

• Organizations worldwide are dissatisfied with their data management strategies and are struggling to address the data demands of their business leaders.
• Solutions provider Precog created a platform which automates the extraction and loading of API data sources.
• The Precog platform is an AI-powered extract, load, and transform (ELT) data platform that provides users with a No-Code solution to quickly connect to any data source and create tables.

Data is the lifeblood of any modern enterprise. Organizations need a robust data management strategy in order to equip decision makers with the information they need to steer the business in a forward-thinking way. Companies have a growing need to integrate their data with analytics tools to offer real-time visibility into the business.

Too Many Data Sources, Poor Data Quality

Despite the significant impact of robust data management on business operations, organizations worldwide are dissatisfied with their data management strategies and are struggling to address the data demands of their business leaders. Most organizations surveyed in SAPinsider’s 2023 SAP Data Management Strategies Research Report said that their data management strategy meets their requirements either only partially, slightly, or did not at all meet their data requirements. Additionally, SAP organizations also highlighted the challenges of too many data sources and poor data quality.

While organizations are pressured to deliver analytics-ready data to users, partners, and customers, they often rely on multiple applications and manual integrations, which are costly and time-consuming. Organizations are unable to scale this approach as data sources grow and expand.

Precog: Analytics-Ready Data

To address the data issues that many organizations face, innovative solutions provider Precog created a platform which automates the extraction and loading of API data sources. The platform leverages an AI based approach to automatically generate analytics-ready tables, endpoints, schemas, primary keys and much more needed for the automation of API data flows for analytics.

“Our Precog platform allows Business Analysts or Data Scientists to connect to any API data source such as SAP Ariba, Concur, Success Factors, Fieldglass, Workday, Salesforce and over 700 more, and have the data available instantly in analytic ready tables for your data warehouse such as SAP Datafabric, Datasphere and HANA,” said Mike Corbisiero, COO and co-founder of Precog.

The Precog platform is an AI-powered extract, load, and transform (ELT) data platform that provides users with a No-Code solution to quickly connect to any data source and create tables. Precog is the only solution provider that offers automated analytics-ready tables from APIs today. All other approaches resort to manually coding, resulting in additional time, effort and maintenance cost for their engineering teams.

Reducing Integration Overhead

Beyond the immediate benefits of analytics-ready tables, Precog’s platform provides scalability by offering connectors for a wide range of essential applications for businesses. As organizations look for solutions to integrate all their API data sources there are no ELT/ETL integration solutions that meet their full requirements. Customers are forced to use multiple solutions to meet their needs along with building custom connectors. This approach results in cost prohibitive operational support challenges and highly brittle systems.

“When you get into the enterprise world of SAP customers, they are dealing with orders, spend, manufacturing, payroll, marketing and human resources data sets which are strategic to the business,” said Corbisiero. The systems must be available 24×7 with the most up to date data to meet the growing business needs for data driven decision making.

Existing solutions require extensive manual work and maintenance, which is manageable only when it involves a handful of datasets. However, the quantity and variety of datasets change and become unmanageable as organizations grow and change. Thus, an automated platform solution becomes the only viable solution for efficient and effective management to meet these challenges.

Minimizing Technical Debt

Supplies continuously change their APIs adding new features, functions to meet evolving customer requirements. However, this affects their data management strategies, by saddling these organizations with excessive amounts of technical debt. For example, applications written for specific APIs must be changed and upgraded along with updates made to the initial API. This is not only difficult to track, but also all the more challenging to implement if not done automatically.

“As you build software products, they generally get more complex over time, and somebody has to continually maintain the system to make sure it continues to work. With our system, it is a platform approach. The API data sources are configured, not coded. The platform does all of the coding work for you automatically,” said Gary Rinedollar, VP of Strategic Alliances at Precog.

Making More Time for Analysis

While it is essential for organizations to have all the necessary data, the real value of data is in how data is leveraged. Precog’s Mike Corbisiero points out that many organizations are exhausting their technical resources on data integrations, not data visualizations, which is where the real value is. It is also important to note that organizations need to have the most up-to-date data warehouse, for SAP organizations, this means looking at SAP Datasphere which is part of the SAP DataFabric..

“If you have SAP HANA today, that’s fine. Start with HANA, but definitely start testing Datasphere. Focus on the visualizations and the business value of what you’re trying to get done and just give us the data integration problems and we’ll take care of it,” said Corbisiero.

Precog processes data into the data warehouse in a relational format and generates a schema that an organization can link up with machine learning, reporting, dashboards to operationalize data and deliver business value.

Unique Value for SAP

Precog is uniquely positioned to help all SAP organizations. Precog’s platform integrates seamlessly with SAP’s sources and destinations to ensure that users can maximize the value of their data.

“SAP owns the business data and the business applications, but the challenge has been getting access to these applications through their APIs. With Precog and Datasphere, SAP has done a really good job of bringing an analytics value proposition to the business user,” said Rinedollar.

Precog also supports SAP organizations by delivering new connectors that offer analytics to any data source with an API within hours not weeks or months, eliminating the need for coding. This positions Precog as a valuable platform for SAP-driven businesses seeking seamless integration and timely insights.

Like SAP, Precog has a list of partner organizations worldwide, including North America, South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. To serve customers worldwide, Precog is compliant with notable security and privacy regulations like GDPR and HIPAA requirements and is SOC2 Type 1 and Type 2 certified.

Scalable Data Integration

Data is incredibly valuable for all organizations, provided they understand how to use it effectively. With data complexity at an all-time high, enterprises struggle to integrate and automate datasets efficiently. While data can be integrated manually, this cannot be done at scale, and organizations will soon run out of resources to keep pace with their data needs.

To help address these challenges, Precog developed a solution using advanced schema detection to deliver ELT automation for companies. This platform approach allows organizations of all sizes to seamlessly integrate their API data sources and delivers analytics ready tables automatically. This provides business leaders with the information they need, while keeping the organization free of cumbersome technical debt.

Meet the SAPInsider Authors:

Mark Vigoroso, Chief Content Officer

Grant Suneson, Editor

View the original article here: https://sapinsider.org/articles/precog-delivers-analytics-ready-data-from-everywhere/