The ability to effectively communicate with data is no longer a luxury in today’s economy; it is a necessity.

Your organization needs a single source of truth. Having multiple versions of the truth can lead to confusion, paralysis, and bad decision making. Data isn’t political and alternative facts are not acceptable. You can’t afford to have them in your organization.

Inconsistent, contradictory data erodes trust in the numbers and impedes the ability of an organization to understand its current performance or forecast into the future with confidence.

Today, the predominant challenge for most businesses isn’t a lack of data—but choosing which numbers to focus on. When most companies have multiple data systems and a wealth of data to draw from, it’s easy to feel data-driven but not actually be data-driven.

A Single Source of Truth to the rescue

Establishing a single source of truth eliminates this issue. Instead of debating which of many competing data sources should be used for making company decisions, everyone can use the same, unified source for all their data needs It provides data that can be used by anyone, in any way, across the entire organization.

A single source of truth (SSOT) is the practice of aggregating the data from many systems within an organization to a single location. A SSOT is not just a system, tool, or strategy, but rather a state of being for a company’s data so that it can all be found via a single reference point.

Why is a SSOT critical?

Creating a single source of truth ensures that businesses are operating based on standardized, relevant data across the organization. Without a single source of truth, data sets exist in siloes and each department operates as a black box. Implementing a single source of truth enables business leaders to make data-driven decisions based on the data from the business as a whole, rather than from compartmental data silos.

Businesses need holistic insights to stay competitive in today’s data-driven market.

Benefits of SSOT

A robust data and business intelligence infrastructure that runs on an SSOT can:

  • Eliminate duplicate entries of data.
  • Provide decision-makers with the right data at the right time.
  • Substantially reduce the time spent on identifying which recorded data is correct.
  • Iteratively improve the data intelligence capabilities of the company.

With faster and more timely decision-making, the company will be in a better position to implement new strategies based on accepted data points.