Why We Built the DataWorkbench

The State Of Data

It’s no surprise to anyone that data management is messy, complex, and in a major state of disarray. As large enterprises are attempting to stay competitive, data is being created at unprecedented rates and organizations are struggling to keep up. From new products to SKUs to product usage, data is all around us and the organizations who know how to use it will thrive, leaving their competitors to ask why they’re falling behind.

In our work with Fortune 1,000 brands, we see large enterprise organizations failing when it comes to their data initiatives. Money is being wasted on massive data projects with little to no return on investment, employees aren’t talking to each other and, with the large amounts of data being created, it’s harder than ever for employees to find what data they actually need when they need it.

As our work continued to grow, we saw a major opportunity to help organizations with their data initiatives. This is where we’d like to introduce our latest product: DataWorkbench

DataWorkbench is a cloud-based data intelligence platform to systematically organize, collaborate, and drive engagement with all of your data initiatives. This centralized repository universally defines data requirements, synthesizes similar needs into uses cases, and maps data metrics to use cases. Our solution brings clarity to your data by infusing process and best practices into your data collection, storage, and engagement. Robust analytics and internal benchmarking give you insight into the state of your data transformation in real-time.

Why Did We Build This Product?

1. In our work with enterprise organizations, we saw six key areas that brands were struggling with repeatedly. After noticing this pattern over-and-over again, our team concepted, designed, and built a solution specifically crafted for the unique needs of enterprise organizations.
2. Data Brings Questionable Impact – Despite millions of dollars being spent on data projects, it’s hard to quantify the impact data is having on organizations. Companies are unclear on their true data initiatives and what they are trying to solve, making it hard for them to quantify the impact data is having within the company. This also drives a lack of clarity and appreciation for data. And of course, without understanding the true impact of data, it makes it hard to get budget for data-related projects.
3. Employees Are Having Poor Data Experiences – Employees are not seeing the big picture with data and view it as a major source of frustration. It’s an area most employees want to avoid, causing poor data engagement levels. This negatively impacts not only individual departments and the company as a whole, but also the experiences with your customers. Without your employees engaging with your data, most data projects will amount to a failed investment without any results.
4. Data Silos Are Everywhere – Most large organizations have data silos all over. Data is not managed in one centralized location and it’s complex to find the right data when you’re working across time zones and countries and dealing with employee turnover. Additionally, data silos make it hard to uncover insights that drive product innovation. If team members don’t know that data exists within the organization, they can’t do much with it.
5. Data Continuity & Documentation Remains A Problem – When someone leaves an organization, it’s easy for data and documentation to get lost. Without a clear succession plan in place, data will just end up remaining on someone’s computer or lost in a siloed, online storage system with credentialing issues. This lack of clear documentation causes immense frustration as new employees start or transition within a company.
6. Inefficiencies Across Organizations – Hours can be spent trying to understand where data is located, how it is generated, and what it means to the organization. Existing manual processes also continue to drive inefficiencies when they are not optimized for the specific needs of the organization. We’ve seen time and time again a major lack of communication about data projects between departments.
7. Lack of Internal Processes Make Data More Complicated – Most data teams do not have robust processes to meet the demand of the enterprise. These ill-defined processes can cause pro¬blems for employees, clients, and stakeholders at all levels. This also means that internal resources might be spent on the same project, but due to the size of the organization, employees might not even know the same project is being worked on twice.

Let’s Get Specific…What Does DataWorkbench Actually Do?

1. Our product is a cloud-based, data intelligence platform. We help with data governance and cataloging to systemically organize, collaborate, and drive engagement with all of your data needs. You’re probably wondering…what exactly that means, right? Let’s break it down.
2. We Are A Centralized Knowledge Repository For Data Intelligence – You can create, store, and find key data elements across your organization, as well as keep track of all data systems across your company (including the description, owner, cost, and number of licenses). Our platform helps users map business terms to technical terms to make it easy for everyone to understand what’s going on with their data terminology. By defining data elements in one place, your company will never have to worry about losing or searching for data ever again.
3. We Drive Social Collaboration & Engagement Through Enterprise-Wide Business Cases – Our platform helps employees easily document their business use cases across the organization. Employees can submit their data requests into one universal hub to help departments collaborate and engage with their data across the entire organization. Employees can provide commentary, ask questions, rate the accuracy of the data, and score the usability of the data elements. With metadata APIs, it’s easy to integrate our product into your environment and consume catalog content anywhere. Finally, you can keep track of the progress of your use cases and business impact.
4. We Help Teams Be More Productive – Instead of working within siloed, disjointed data platforms, our product encourages teams to quickly find what they need, when they need it. You can document data lineage and how it moves over time to easily dig deep into your data and find what you need. We’re designed to quickly find the information that you need, anywhere, anytime.
5. Comprehensive Benchmarking & Data Insights – When it comes to your data strategy, you’re going to want to be able to measure it. Our product helps you view key metrics that drive data transformation across people, process, and technology functions. You can track and monitor your data strategy score over time, and easily determine strengths and weaknesses in your current data strategy models.

Who Is It For?

While our data project can be used by anyone in your organization, we’ve identified a few key buyers who tend to get the most use out of it.

1. Executive Leaders – DataWorkbench helps executive leaders have one enterprise-wide system to manage all of their data. They’ll get access to comprehensive, real-time dashboards with a 360-degree view of every data-related project in the organization. They will be able to quickly see gaps in the organization’s data transformation, which will help them drive better collaboration between departments, identify shared data goals, and drive alignment.
2. Tech-Based Data Lead – The tech-based data lead is trying to drive engagement with their data consumers in the organization. DataWorkbench helps them to build business cases with tangible business impact (ultimately leading to bigger budgets). They will be able to identify real data problems with clarity, strong efficiencies, and increased transparency across the organization. With established data processes, they will also be able to ensure the data is easily accessible and universally defined across the organization.
3. Business-Based Data Lead – The business-based data lead can use our product to encourage collaborative use of data throughout the organization. They’ll get access to comprehensive, real-time dashboards with a 360-degree view of every data-related project in the within their department. They can track and monitor their data strategy over time and determine enterprise-wide uses cases that will drive ROI.
4. Non-Technical End Users/Data Consumers – Data consumers and users are everywhere within your organization. They can use our product to collaborate, provide comments, and ask questions about the data within the organization. Additionally, they will be able to easily understand and look-up data within the organization to help drive stronger efficiencies.

What Benefits Are We Seeing?

There are four key benefits we’d like to highlight with DataWorkbench users:

1. Streamlined Efficiencies Within Your Organization – With stronger internal collaboration, you’ll be able to reduce wasted time and streamline efficiencies in your company. Instead of relying on siloed, disjointed systems, you’ll be able to quickly search and find exactly what you need, when you need it.
2. Defined Data Strategy With Measured Business Impact – Our powerful collaboration tools help you to get you know your employee’s data needs. You’ll be able to align departments on shared goals with clearly defined use cases, making it possible to align people, resources, and processes like never before. By removing data silos and increasing cross-departmental collaboration, you’ll have stronger visibility into your data in ways that drive a tangible business impact.
3. Best-Practice Data Governance & Transformation – With our real-time data strategy score, you will always know where you stand on the way to true data transformation. By collecting the right data across your people, process, and technology functions, you’ll gain key insights to help your organization thrive.
4. Data-Driven Culture – With DataWorkbench, you’ll be able to easily understand the meaning behind your data and remove ambiguity with a universal data glossary. By keeping track of your data’s movement, monitoring all data systems, and encouraging your end-users to be a part of your data strategy, you’ll be on your way to results-driven, comprehensive data culture.

“XenoData’s ability to understand business concepts, and the strategic leverage behind them, quickly helped us translate a complex, manual problem to a useable, workable technology delivery platform. They understand what it is you’re talking about, what it is you’re trying to solve, and asked all of the right questions to drive measurable business results for us and our clients.”
- Kirk Sanderson
Managing Partner, M&A Insurance Solutions

About Us

DataWorkbench by XenoDATA is a cloud-based data intelligence platform to systematically organize, collaborate, and drive engagement with all of your data initiatives. This centralized repository universally defines data requirements, synthesizes similar needs into uses cases, and maps data metrics to use cases. Our solution brings clarity to your data by infusing process and best practices into your data collection, storage, and engagement. Robust analytics and internal benchmarking give you insight into the state of your data transformation in real-time.