UPDATED 13:34 EDT / MAY 27 2016

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Informatica CEO on data’s role in the digital transformation | #GuestOfTheWeek

As organizations continue to search for the most efficient ways to collect mountains of data, new data integration tools are emerging. Informatica LLC is one such company on the cutting-edge of these solutions, and at Informatica World 2016 in San Francisco, it announced several new data integration tools, including its new Marketing Data Lake.

Anil Chakravarthy, CEO of Informatica Corp., recently joined John Furrier (@furrier) and Peter Burris (@plburris), cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, during Informatica World 2016 to discuss his new role and insight into the future of data.

Predicting the future of data

As the interview began, Furrier referred back to the last interview he did with Chakravarthy, mentioning how impressed he was by Chakravarthy’s forward thinking. Furrier asked him how the company has capitalized on his vision.

“We essentially got a two-year head start on the market because we read it correctly. What was really going on was a revolution in the data market that was leading to an opportunity to focus on data as an independent platform rather than the exhaust from operational systems. So we call this new age as ‘the age of data 3.0 — the opportunity to build new business models based on data.

“The fruit of that vision, the big ones are … Live Data Map, which is your own internal kind of Google for your data inside the enterprise and inside the cloud. What data do you have? Where is it? Who has access to it? Is it sensitive or not? Essential questions that everybody has about their data but it’s hard to get answers. Easy to ask the questions. Hard to get answers. Live Data Map provides those answers.”

Cloud buzz

Noting the buzz surrounding Cloud MDM (Master Data Management) at the event, Furrier asked Chakravarthy why he feels that Cloud MDM is so important.

“We talked about the Big Data platform being on-premise, in the cloud and hybrid — that was the vision we talked about two years ago. Cloud MDM fits squarely into that … we recognize that MDM is the core technology … that’s our intellectual property.

“Where that is run clearly depends on where the data is. If the customer’s data happens to be on premise, we run it on premise. If the customer’s data is within Salesforce, we run it in Salesforce. If a customer wants to run it on Amazon, which is what we are doing with Cloud MDM, we run it on Amazon. The real advancement is being able to make it work in a hybrid manner so that you can have data sources anywhere.”

Expanding the TAM

When asked how he keeps focused while expanding the Total Available Market (TAM), Chakravarthy explained his areas of focus and why they are fundamental to the enterprise.

“Basically, we are in six key markets, and the good thing is those markets are growing. The TAM is expanding because we’ve stayed in those same six key markets … data integration, data quality, master data management, Big Data, data core and data security. Those are the key six markets we are in.”

Questions about security

Chakravarthy talked about data security and the key target areas for leadership.

“The reason we got into the security market is a fundamental belief we have that the right way to do security is by being aware of the data; to have the context of the data. Otherwise, what are you really protecting? If I am protecting a machine that has no worthwhile data on it, why would I spend any money on that? Whereas I know something is really sensitive, I want to make sure that it is really protected.

“We are sitting at the right place on the infrastructure to do data security, and that’s what has led to this huge explosion in how we can integrate data security in other parts of the platform and deliver something in the market that nobody else has.”

Expanding on the security topic, Burris addressed the kind of conversations Chakravarthy is having with other CEOs about the role of data need and about how they need to look at data within their businesses?

“There’s a ton of interest. A lot of people have been thinking about this. Executives, CEOs, Boards are thinking about this from a variety of angles … the good thing is, as people have thought about it a little bit more, they have already come to the conclusion that their data, their back end and their systems all play a critical role in the transformation.

“Data is an essential element of making your digital strategy work … . When people start talking about digital and they start mapping it out in any detail, they quickly realize that’s when they need the data.”

Real-time value

When commenting on what the strategy moving forward with data will be, Chakravarthy believes real time will have a critical impact on business.

“The strategy is really simple: In the past, we had a difference between operational systems and analytical systems. If you wanted to do an analysis, you had data transferred over on a batch basis and you could do the analytics on that day-old data or maybe six-year-old data; it didn’t matter. Now systems are together.”

Chakravarthy provides a customer use case based on an airline and creating great experiences for top-tier customers. The question for the enterprise is: What is the data and is it valuable? Chakravarthy stated that this is where the company’s enterprise data competency model comes into play.

“How do we help our customers understand what they do with the data and what is valuable? Where do you want to be at level five, level two, level three? And that depends on your business and your business model. That is exactly what we are trying to do.”

Watch the entire interview below with Anil Chakravarthy to learn more about the role of data in the enterprise.

Photo by SiliconANGLE

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