Why External Data Needs to Be Part of Your Data and Analytics Strategy

Chapter 2. How New Technology Is Making External Data Easier to Use with Analytics

In this section, we begin to explore the nuts and bolts of external data platforms solving key challenges, such as:

• Distilling the unknown unknowns while still understanding compliance risks

• Overcoming data access and data usage issues

• Augmenting data for quicker time to value

How Do External Data Platforms Help Find the Unknown Unknowns?

Sometimes you don’t know which data you’re looking for when you’re looking for data. Counterintuitive data signals are often business questions that you can get your head around but can’t answer since you’re missing the right data. The missing data might be a spreadsheet on someone’s monitor halfway around the world. It might be another external data source that will simplify your analytics and help you make a more intelligent business decision. You may not know where the data is, what type of data it is, or what it’ll look like—but you ‘ll intuitively know it when you see it. What you’ve been looking for is what Donald Rumsfeld coined as unknown unknowns.

Learning that a business process error has been keeping customers from completing their orders for over a week is an example of an unknown unknown. In a high-risk, high-reward industry such as online lending, unknown unknowns can put you at a disadvantage—not to mention your competition may be using it to gain an advantage and take market share.

The Federal Reserve report “Interagency Statement on the ...