The Record - Issue 21: Summer 2021

156 www. t e c h n o l o g y r e c o r d . c om treatments and a supportive culture to actively manage the well-being of corporate information. The system includes monitoring and reporting tools for helping organisations understand and communicate the overall reliability, risk and return of an asset that’s essential to their viability. “Talend empowers retail customers to aggre- gate data from disparate sources, prepare and cleanse the data, ensure data quality through- out the data life cycle and deliver it to the lines of business to make decisions quickly. Talend makes the data work for the business user, allowing them to focus on their core respon- sibilities. Companies who use Microsoft Azure and Talend Data Fabric can really upgrade their customer knowledge with advanced analytics in real time. That’s the best way to drive better customer experiences.” One such customer is Popken Fashion Group. The business uses Talend Data Services, includ- ing Talend Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) and Enterprise Application Integration, to consol- idate data from many sources, including data- bases, CSV files and text files. “Talend doesn’t just provide benefits, it is a must have,” said Stefan Rahner, head of software development at Popken Fashion Group. “As a fashion retailer, we must sell every article of clothing possible. Talend enables us to react rap- idly to changing market conditions. I think we need it in order to survive.” Popken currently uses Microsoft Dynamics 365 via Talend’s products but intends to expand its use of the cloud by migrating applications. Talend will help the business in its long-term cloud strategy due to its ability to work with Microsoft Azure and serve on-premises systems. Ultimately, Smith believes that solutions like those from Talend could help retailers prepare for the long-term. “For those organisations in the retail space, using their data to design relevant customer experiences, improve their products and ser- vices is a requirement to stay relevant in an ever-changing industry. With retail being so competitive and margins thinning, there is no room for errors in decision-making. Bad data could literally put them out of busi- ness. Effectively leveraging their data gives them the ability to reduce errors, streamline processes to create efficiencies and ultimately retain higher margins.” I NT E R V I EW