Value Creators — Enrichment

Create value by taking something and making it better.

A simple idea, but one that is at the heart of why customers are attracted to software products in all of their wonderful forms. In the previous value creators article we talked about storage which is the unsung hero — well enrichment is the capability that will sell your product and truly differentiate it from the competition.

Enrichment involves taking an input (such as text, a document, an image or raw data) and sending it through one or more processes to create a transformed output that is deemed to be more useful than the original input. In some cases, this transformation is possible to do by everyone manually — but can be done more efficiently by software. In other examples, it is possible to do manually, but requires an expert or a person with special skills. Finally, there are many transformations that just cannot be done manually due to the sheer processing power and complexity of the task.

Enrichment can save time, cut costs, generate competitive advantage, aid innovation, reduce risk and increase security. When a customer sees data (particularly their own) data enriched using a reliable and repeatable process it can be extremely compelling. Value is further increased for large and complex data sets, for hard to find data points and by adding interesting and unique visualisations. The output of thoughtful enrichments should provide the “Aha!” moments in your product demonstrations.

The current capabilities of Artificial Intelligence further increases the ability to enrich data in thousands of different ways. The following provides a non-exhaustive list of the ways in which data can be enriched by software.

• Text Processing — The ability to take a passage of text and improve it. Text processing includes spell checking, grammar checking, summarisation, highlighting, re-formatting and language translation. For text processing, Grammarly is a well-known product that offers advanced grammar, punctuation, style, and tone checking. Lesser-known alternatives include Hemingway Editor, which enhances readability by highlighting complex sentences and common errors, and ProWritingAid, a comprehensive writing tool that includes grammar checking, style improvement, and readability scoring.
• Data Processing — The ability to cleanse and improve data, specifically by adding missing information, veryifying existing information and augmenting records with additional related information. In data processing, Talend is a widely recognized product that provides a comprehensive suite of tools for data integration and integrity. Lesser-known options include Trifacta, a data preparation platform that helps cleanse, transform, and enrich data, and OpenRefine, an open-source tool for cleaning and transforming data.
• Classification and Indexing — The ability to sort and tag data against a pre-defined taxonomy of terms. Of course this classification can be applied to textual information, but can equally be applied to images, audio and video as well. The purpose of classification and indexing is to make data easier to retrieve when required. For classification and indexing, Apache Solr stands out as a powerful search platform that handles indexing and classification for various data types. Lesser-known products in this category include Gensim, an open-source library for topic modeling and document indexing in Python, and Tagtog, a text annotation tool that facilitates the classification and indexing of textual data.
• Image Manipulation and Enhancement — The ability to manipulate and enhance image and video data including applying filters, reducing noise, removing unwanted image components (such as a background), splicing, concatenating and summarising. In the realm of image manipulation and enhancement, Adobe Photoshop is the leading software for photo editing, manipulation, and enhancement. Lesser-known alternatives include GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), a free, open-source image editor with extensive features, and Affinity Photo, a professional photo editing software with advanced features at a lower cost.
• Calculations and Analytics — The ability to use mathematical formulas, operations and algorithms to calculate new information from raw data. For example calculate key business metrics by day, week, month or year. Compare this year’s metrics with a benchmark such as last year’s performance. Generate predictive models to anticipate supply and demand in the future. For calculations and analytics, Tableau is a well-known product that excels in data visualization and generating insights. Lesser-known alternatives include KNIME, an open-source platform for data analytics, reporting, and integration, and Alteryx, a data analytics platform that enables data blending and advanced analytics.

Consider every use case and capability within your product. What data is being enriched today? What could be further enriched? What data could be enriched in the future and what value would this have to your users? Do you need any third party data in order to achieve this enrichment or can it be done solely from the data collected within your product. Could you legitimately collect more data from your customers and how could this impact enrichment processes?

Utilise third party vendors and solutions to enrich information as well as your own development efforts to help accelerate delivering value to your users.

Enrichment can provide the killer features that makes buying, implementing and managing a SaaS product worthwhile. Consider how that data that resides in your product can be enriched and how you can work with upstream and downstream systems to enrich data as it passes through the organisation.