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Business-Friendly Data Mapping

Business-Friendly Data Mapping helps bridge the gap between technical data models and the people who need to use them. Modern data platforms are full of complex metadata, lineage, and technical detail. Business leaders need clarity — not code.

🚀 Why We Need a Business-Friendly Data Transformation Model

5 min read5 days ago

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Moving beyond “models” and legacy modeling tools

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đź’ˇ Summary:
Modern SQL frameworks like dbt and SQLMesh have revolutionized analytics engineering — but their concepts aren’t always clear to business stakeholders.

By shifting to an entity-first, metadata-driven approach, we can keep the agility of SQL while making transformations understandable and governable.

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The Challenge: SQL Pipelines Without a Clear Business Model

If you’ve worked with dbt or other SQL transformation frameworks, you’ve probably seen this:

  • The word “model” is overloaded.
    In dbt, a model is just a SQL file. For business modelers, a “data model” means something entirely different — logical entities, keys, and relationships.
  • Metadata is scattered.
    Column definitions live partly in SQL, partly in YAML. Relationships are implied but not formally documented.
  • Legacy tools (Erwin, PowerDesigner) still linger.
    Most teams use only a fraction of their features, yet pay to maintain them as disconnected metadata silos.

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Business-Friendly Data Mapping
Business-Friendly Data Mapping

Published in Business-Friendly Data Mapping

Business-Friendly Data Mapping helps bridge the gap between technical data models and the people who need to use them. Modern data platforms are full of complex metadata, lineage, and technical detail. Business leaders need clarity — not code.

Jaco van der Laan
Jaco van der Laan

Written by Jaco van der Laan

Exploring Business & Logical Data Modeling. Writing on Clarity, Structure & Creative Approaches to Data Architecture.

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