With more retail data being generated than ever before, you'd be forgiven for thinking retailers know the numbers behind every part of their business. However, departmental silos and understanding the data is causing data friction. In this Q&A with RetailTechNews, Jason Grauel, vice president, product management, Delphix, explains what causes data friction, and how the retail industry must tackle the issues it creates.

RetailTechNews: Can you explain what data friction is and how companies suffer from it?

Jason Grauel: Enterprise data has never been more critical for enterprises to drive innovation and stay competitive. Demand for data is higher than ever, but getting data to the people who need it is a slow, tedious, and often risk-prone process. That resistance is called data friction. It’s the tension between demand for data access and the constraints that stand in the way. Data friction takes many forms: organisational red tape, security constraints, regulations, manual processes, outdated systems, and more. It slows the entire data lifecycle –  access, provisioning, consumption – to a crawl, hindering companies from meeting the ever-growing demands of their market. Eliminating data friction is critical to achieving true agility and gaining a competitive advantage.

Is this issue more prevalent in the retail industry than other industries? Why is this?

The retail industry is a prime example of the digital pressures exerted on companies, as we’ve seen in our work for the likes of eBay, Nordstrom, and StubHub. Consumer preferences have strongly shifted to online shopping, which has dramatically increased the amount of data at play in their business.

Catering to these consumer preferences requires continually rethinking the user experience and better understanding the users. It requires that developers have access to safe, usable data to constantly provide the fixes, upgrades, and personalisation customers expect from retail platforms. Retail data rapidly multiplies over new markets, platforms, and products; and especially with larger, established retailers, there’s an enormous infrastructure, bureaucracy, and time drag when it comes to delivering databases for development environments.

In an era of GDPR, Cambridge Analytica, and high-profile breaches, privacy and security are top-of-mind for consumers. And they’re holding data-collecting organisations accountable. With e-commerce driving the retail industry, all of these issues are retail issues. It’s essential that only the right people have the right level of access to the right data, and that throughout this data flow, the data is secured.

How can retailers look to overcome data friction?

To overcome data friction, retailers must address the organisational and cultural barriers that separate their people from data. Data and human silos cause data friction and stagnation that slow and limit critical innovation.

Fast-moving companies have broadly adopted DevOps (or perhaps DevOps principles) in development cycles. DevOps calls for a unification of software development ('Dev') and software operations ('Ops'). It’s a mentality, above all else, of streamlining processes and connecting people to meet and exceed business objectives.

DevOps spawned a similar culture, seen as the leading approach for eliminating data friction, called DataOps (portmanteau of 'data' and 'operations'). It’s an operations methodology focused on rethinking data access in the context of speeding up innovation cycles. DataOps connects data operators (database administrators, security and compliance, system administrators) with internal data consumers (developers, testers, data scientists, analysts) as one streamlined team. Much like the alignment of development and operational skills sets, companies embracing DatOps aim to empower the best data assets to work together more efficiently.

DataOps also forces a hard look at a company’s data technology infrastructure. There are seemingly endless technology offerings, ranging from legacy backup tools to new cloud services. DataOps aims to match the right solutions for the right tasks. At its core, it’s about bringing people and technology together to enable companies to thrive in the retail market.

What benefits can overcoming data friction have, in terms of gaining an edge on competition?

Every company is now a data company, including retailers. Recognising this and investing in overcoming data friction is the only way to keep up with, and gain an edge on, the competition. Today’s digitally native customers demand an exacting standard from online services, particularly in retail, that rapidly respond and innovate to deliver constantly improving user experiences. At this point in the digital economy, data friction and the speed of innovation are the next big constraints for who wins and who loses.

Retailers can harness data to analyse customer behaviour, optimise UX at multiple touchpoints, predict operational and supply trends, create targeted promotions, and so much more. From end to end in the supply chain, data is a chance to gain a competitive advantage – if you can quickly and easily put the most current data to use.

Developing a comprehensive approach to data can also help secure that data. Retailers have earned notoriety for data breaches with big-name data breaches from the likes of Target, Neiman Marcus, Under Armour’s MyFitnessPal, and many more. Implementing data friction-reducing strategies, like DataOps, inherently requires companies to understand their full data landscape, identifying both opportunities and risks. It’s also an opportunity to modernise security and compliance practices. A strong focus on data security and usage is just as much of an edge on the competition as the latest product features.

What other steps is Delphix taking in terms of helping retailers with digital transformation?

In addition to providing and implementing our product, the Delphix Dynamic Data Platform, we work closely with companies, their chief information officers, and their data teams to understand their data and technologies. This review of the data and the dependent technology portfolio is a crucial internal alignment step to create their best external products. We work with retailers to truly optimise their development output and quality.

We have an extensive list of technology partners with whom we have created joint solutions or support on a range of platforms. Particularly on the e-commerce side, retailers typically have a wide range of tools in their technology portfolio; and one of the core components of digital transformation is making sure these are compatible. Otherwise, organisations end up at the original problem: siloed data.

We also help companies sort out the buzzwords, like AI and machine learning, from the fundamental tenets of digital transformation. While these hot topics are viable and important tools to consider for overall innovation, they’re surface issues compared to the data backbone of companies. Digital transformation starts with the core data infrastructure and flows that power business, and then builds to the buzzwords.