SAN MATEO, Calif., Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Unifi Software, a leader in providing a seamlessly integrated suite of self-service data tools, today announced it was recognized as a Leader in “The Forrester Wave™: Data Preparation Solutions, Q4 2018” report1 by Forrester Research, Inc. Top-ranked in the Current Offering category, Unifi received the highest scores possible in the Machine Learning, Metadata Management and Cataloging, Team Collaboration features, and Security and Governance criteria.
“The Forrester Wave report recognizes what we believe to be critical capabilities for companies implementing governed self-service data access—machine learning automation and team collaboration. Unifi executes these brilliantly across our data platform,” said Rob Carlson, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder for Unifi Software. “Business users must be able to find and use data to compete in today’s rapidly evolving marketplace. We are the only vendor to be named a Leader with the same product evaluated in both The Forrester Wave™: Machine Learning Data Catalogs and Data Preparation Solutions by Forrester this year and we’re extremely proud of that achievement.”
In its report1, Forrester states that Data Preparation solutions are the rocket fuel for data activation and that companies must, “Put trusted data where the money is, with machine learning doing work for end users. Effective data management isn’t a goal, or even an end in itself. As complex as it is, it’s just a contributor to the true goal: using insights based on data to take actions. Enterprises need to put data for generating insights where the money gets generated: directly into the hands of more people in the firm whose organizational and individual goals depend on improving business outcomes. Data Prep solutions achieve this with ML optimization for hands-on use by business end users and analysts, along with governance capabilities for data stewards, data engineers, and data ops users.“
The Forrester Report states that Unifi Software “democratizes data prep along with strong cataloging and governance,” and that “Unifi combines data prep, integrated cataloging, and ML capabilities to feed analytics.” The firm added that the company “supports self-service by differentiating the governance of sensitive data across the platform.” This manifests itself uniquely in the Unifi Data Platform where derived attributes are automatically scanned for PII and masked if the function either intentionally or inadvertently creates PII data, a major cause of non-compliance.
As part of the evaluation criteria, customer references (data professionals in this case), “praise the accessibility of the solution for nontechnical users and its ‘greater simplicity and flexibility versus more traditional methods’, as well as its data governance,” which one reference said, “helped us become GDPR compliant in a breeze,” according to Forrester.
Data Preparation continues to move out of IT: In 2017, 70% of global data and analytics decision makers reported that IT (including a chief data officer in IT) had significant ownership of data preparation; that fell to 66% in 2018, with 15% of the responsibility for data prep now in lines of business2. The Forrester report notes that’s a good thing. “Professionals across firms need to activate data, wherever they are on the org chart: in customer insights, customer experience, digital, and marketing; in operational areas such as service and supply chain; and in corporate areas such as competitive intelligence, finance, and human resources. Data prep solutions make it possible for data to be where it needs to be.”
About Unifi Software
Unifi Software delivers a suite of self-service data tools that help users find and the use the data that is most important to them. The Unifi Data Catalog with Natural Language Queries offers users an intuitive experience to easily discover and collaborate around data. At the heart of the Unifi Data Catalog is the Unifi OneMind AI technology powering every aspect of functionality from recommendations to the discovery of similar datasets to Natural Language Query support that helps users directly get answers to data questions. Integrated governance and security help maintain compliance for self-service access to data. The Unifi Data Platform incorporates the Unifi Data Catalog and seamlessly delivers advanced, OneMind-powered self-service data preparation. The Unifi Data Platform also incorporates workflow automation functions to help users and organizational teams create repeatable reporting and analysis. Both the Unifi Data Catalog and Unifi Data Platform can be deployed on-premises, in private or public cloud environments.
Unifi was founded by data and enterprise infrastructure experts from Greenplum (now part of Dell Technologies), Oracle, Microsoft, and Platfora (now part of Workday). The company is headquartered in San Mateo, CA and operates regional offices across the U.S. and a development center in Bangalore, India.
Source: 1 Forrester Research, “The Forrester Wave™: Data Preparation Solutions, Q4 2018”. 31 October 2018.
Source: 2 Forrester Analytics Global Business Technographics Data And Analytics Survey, 2018 and 2017.
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Press Contact:
Deborah Mullan
Director, Corporate Communications
Unifi Software
(925) 383-7765
deborah@unifisoftware.com