The Importance of Data Lineage and How to Map It
Data lineage is becoming more important for companies in the retail industry, and Loblaws and Publix are doing a good job of putting this process into place. Retail businesses may make better decisions, lower risks, and achieve better business results by mapping data lineage and gaining a thorough understanding of how data flows through their organization. In this piece, we’ll look at five reasons why retail businesses should map their data ancestry and give examples from Loblaws and Publix of how they’ve done it.
For merchants to accurately depict consumer behaviour and preferences, data quality is crucial. Retailers can find and fix data quality problems before they have an impact on daily operations by mapping the data lineage.
Loblaws, which is the biggest grocery retailer in Canada, used data lineage to make its data better. The company looked at the history of its product data, which helped it figure out which product descriptions were wrong or missing. Following that, Loblaws was able to clean up its product data and increase the precision of its customer, inventory, and loyalty data.
Similar to this, Publix, one of the biggest regional supermarket stores in the US, used data lineage to raise the quality of its data. To find and fix data inaccuracies, the organisation traced the history of its customers’ data. As a result, Publix was able to increase the accuracy of its consumer data and comprehend the preferences of its customers.
Retailers need to use data lineage as a key tool to meet legal requirements like the GDPR and CCPA. Data lineage can assist guarantee that this data is managed in a compliant and transparent manner. Retail companies frequently gather sensitive data, such as credit card details.
Loblaws used data lineage to adhere to GDPR requirements. The business traced the history of its customers’ data, enabling it to guarantee compliance with GDPR’s demands for handling personal data.
In a similar vein, Publix established data lineage to abide by CCPA rules. To assure compliance with the CCPA’s obligations for data privacy, the organization traced the history of its customers’ data.
The practice of data governance is essential in the retail sector, especially given the growing volume of everyday customer data acquired. Data lineage gives insight into who is utilizing, how, and when data is being modified.
To better understand how client data moves across its systems, Loblaws created a data lineage map. The company was able to make sure that its customers’ data was safe and in compliance by using this data to establish clear data ownership, set data policies, and put in place data security measures.
