Manish Sood, CTO & Co-Founder of Reltio, sits down with Dave Vellante for the AWS Startup Showcase: Innovations with CloudData & CloudOps #CubeOnCloudStartups #CloudInnovation #theCUBE https://siliconangle.com/2021/03/24/reltio-unifies-data-sources-to-deliver-customer-context-in-real-time-cubeoncloudawsstartups/ Reltio unifies data sources to deliver customer context in real time BY MARK ALBERTSON The industry term for access to accurate and retrievable business information is master data management, but most enterprises refer to it as a single source of truth. Like many things in life, finding a single source of truth has been a noble yet elusive goal. When Reltio Inc. started business in 2011, the company set out to create not only a single source of truth, but the ability to deliver a contextual customer view in real time based on business roles and objectives. Reltio foresaw two key trends that have put it on the growth curve it is experiencing today. The company’s executives decided to deliver its solution through software-as-a-service, and they anticipated that the amount of data platforms would only continue to grow, which led them to build the business on the Amazon Web Services Inc. cloud so the solution could scale. “We knew that the number of systems we would have to work with would continue to increase, and that created the problem of where you would get the single source of truth,” said Manish Sood (pictured), co-founder and chief technology officer of Reltio. “That’s where the foundation of Reltio started, and the core problem we wanted to solve was to bridge the gap that was created by all of these data silos. We decided that not only would we use compute capabilities in the cloud with products like AWS as the backbone, but also solve some of the core problems around how more sources of information can be unified at scale.” Sood spoke with Dave Vellante, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during the AWS Startup Showcase Event: Innovators in Cloud Data. They discussed how Reltio addressed the problem of data fragmentation, use of its technology by key clients, and the company’s growth momentum in the master data management market. (* Disclosure below.) A scalable cloud platform Data silos and fragmentation have emerged as key points of friction within many organizations. In a survey of 1,000 IT decision makers by Adobe Inc., data silos accounted for two of the top three challenges facing enterprises in creating a single customer view. Reltio set out to address this through a scalable master data management platform that would support real-time operations. “Data fragmentation is what exists today and, with the Reltio software-as-a-service offering that we provide, we allow customers to stitch together and unify the data coming from these different fragmented, siloed applications,” Sood explained. “That’s where Reltio fits in as the only platform that can help stitch together this kind of information and create a 360-degree view that spans all the data silos. It’s not a CRM system by itself, but it is an information application that can aid and assist in the decision-making process as a starting point.” Reltio is working with clients in a number of key vertical markets, including life sciences, travel and hospitality, financial services, insurance and retail, according to Sood. One customer is CarMax Inc., the Fortune 500 company and major used-car retailer. Many of CarMax’s customers already have a vehicle they would like to trade in to help pay for a newer car. Completing a successful sale requires access to a lot of data points involving the service history and value of the current owner’s car, along with information about the one they wish to purchase. “They use Reltio for aggregating, unifying and then making available all of the information about the customers and what they are trying to achieve,” Sood said. “For the vehicle itself, there’s a lot of information in order to price it right that needs to be gathered from multiple sources. The continuum of data from the consumer to the vehicle is aggregated from multiple sources, unified inside Reltio and then made available through API or other methods and means to various applications.” Real-time financial data Reltio’s SaaS platform is used by customers for more than just accessing key data from multiple sources. The company’s ability to provide data in real time can be especially important in situations involving financial services, such as the refinancing or purchase of a new home. ... “Once you know you’re on a great growth trajectory and the business is performing well, it’s all about making sure you can drive harder and faster towards the growth milestones you want to achieve,” Sood said. “We have to really make sure we can bring this capability to a wider array of customers.”