2 min read Blog

Why is it important to have a single source of truth?

Why is it important to have a single source of truth?

SaaS spending is projected to grow 17.9% to total $197 billion in 2023, which means your line of business managers will continue to adopt more tools. Merging this data into a Single Source of Truth (SSoT), you can easily pull reliable reports based on standardized, relevant data from across your organization.

You may already have a massive headache when you think about the number of systems your company already uses and how much it pains you to see teams working in silos.

You shouldn’t have to wait two days for a data engineer to process your request or spend hours trying to pull together data sets from multiple applications.

Let sales use Outreach and marketing use Hubspot to manage their campaigns.

Now think about having a Single Source of Truth (SSoT) that can aggregate data across various systems into a single location. Doesn’t that release the tension from your shoulders?

Why is a Single Source of Truth Crucial?

A Single Source of Truth provides the holistic view needed to stay competitive in a data-driven market.

When it comes to data management, data silos are the enemy.

For example, let’s say your sales team is tracking $30K in pipeline revenue from a lead record using Outreach. Meanwhile, your marketing team is only tracking $5K for the same lead record using Hubspot.

If you don’t have a SSoT for your data, your revenue projections could be off by hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on how many duplicate records you have between systems.

If decisions are being made without a clear understanding of the full picture, your business is at risk of failure.

You wouldn’t buy a house without seeing the whole thing. Don’t make business decisions without a SSoT.

What is the Difference Between a Single Source of Truth and a System of Record?

A System of Record (SOR) is the primary information system for a given data element. For example, a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform acts as the SOR for your customer data.

A SSoT consolidates data from multiple SORs into one place for a 360-degree view of your company data.

How Do I Build a Single Source of Truth?

To develop a SSoT, you’ll need to:

  • Outline the goals and data you want to centralize
  • Inventory your data sources
  • Evaluate data quality and identify issues
  • Establish governance policies and security measures
  • Select the integration tools you want to use
  • Define and populate your Data Model
  • Provide user training

It can be a painful process to do this manually. But, you can use a Master Data Management tool to help you streamline your data sources automatically.

You’ll be able to remove duplicates, aggregate data sources, and pull data you trust without wrangling the help of a data engineer.

Using a MDM tool to create your SSoT, will help you make critical business decisions at the most opportune time.

Want to learn more about the Pliable platform? – Request a demo here.

Carson Van Gelder