Cool Vendors 2018: Technologies and Business Come Together to Solve Hard Problems

Companies increasingly need smart vendor solutions to solve both nuanced and broad-ranging problems. Finding the right use-case scenarios is more critical than ever. CIOs must seek the standout vendors and learn how Cool Vendors can provide them with unique solutions.

Gartner’s definition of a Cool Vendor is a small company offering a technology or service that is:

  • Innovative — enables users to do things they couldn’t do before
  • Impactful — has or will have a business impact, not just technology for its own sake
  • Intriguing — has caught Gartner’s interest during the past six months

“Being named one of Gartner’s 2018 Cool Vendors means that one must stand out from the crowd. But it also means doing something worth doing,” said Daryl Plummer, vice president and Gartner Fellow. “Being a Cool Vendor in 2018 is all about solving difficult problems in segments including banking and investment services, supply chain execution and IoT security.”

Gartner Cool Vendor 2018 Logo - for Information Innovation - only 1 of 5 organisations globally to be recognised this way

Download the full Information Innovation Cool Vendor report here

LINQ has been named 1 of 5 companies globally as a Cool Vendor in Information Innovation.

The key findings of the report suggest that;

  • data markets are developing beyond the traditional data aggregators and brokers,
  • that measuring information flow and the sensitivity and value of data can help to alleviate compliance and data management priorities and concerns, and
  • more work is required to better understand the consequence of decisions before implementing business analysis which results in interesting, but not business-changing knowledge.

Recommendations for organisations which LINQ can directly and immediately assist with include;

  • Build an inventory of information assets, internal and external to the business,
  • Understand the flow, lifecycle, value and relationship of data & information, which will enable infonomics.

LINQs Entry in the Cool Vendor Information Innovation Report

Analysis by Alan D. Duncan, Research VP, Gartner

Who should care: Data and analytics leaders such as chief data officers and those responsible for data risk, regulatory and compliance who are seeking to apply infonomics in a practical manner to realise new business value from their information assets.

Why Cool:  LINQ brings infonomics to life. By measuring, managing and monetizing information supply chains in business terms, users of LINQ are able identify areas for new business value and can start to eradicate the information waste that arises from lost opportunities and business inefficiencies. The software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform features graphical workflow that models and correlates: data inputs, preparation and transformation steps, reporting outputs, business decisions, actions arising and resulting business outcomes. It enables analysts to communicate and make transparent the true business impacts of different data sets, surface hidden dependencies and evaluate the impacts of any changes to the data, systems and people needed to achieve business success. By orchestrating the organisation’s understanding of its people, systems and data, and identifying opportunities to improve in business terms, LINQ helps to proactively facilitate data-driven culture change.

Challenges. Multiple data catalog solutions are now available, many of which are backed by significant venture capital investment.  Data cataloguing is likely to be an increasingly competitive and congested higher-order capability within the metadata management market. LINQ may struggle to achieve sufficient critical mass unless they can capitalise on aligning so closely with infonomics thinking, perhaps by building partnerships with other more established metadata vendors. Being headquartered in New Zealand, geographic reach will be a further challenge for LINQ. While their solution is offered as a SaaS environment and is therefore “borderless”, it may be difficult to generate sufficient industry momentum unless LINQ work hard on their sales and channel strategies.

How LINQ can help

LINQs methodology and platform enable you to quickly visualise the value of your information assets.

By understanding which data & information is critical to the delivery of the outcomes which make you successful, you can ensure you are investing in the right areas of your business. Knowing about your information gives you an advantage over your competitors. You will quickly spot new ways to mobilise your data to deliver new solutions to your customers keeping you ahead of the herd.

An all-in-one computer screen with LINQ running as the application on screen

Infonomics

Measure, manage and monetize your information supply chains in business terms.

Business Value

Eradicate the information waste that arises from lost opportunities and business inefficiencies.

Graphical Modelling

Model data inputs, preparation and transformation steps, reporting outputs, business decisions, actions arising and resulting business outcomes.

Enable Communication

Make transparent the true business impact of your different data & information.

Cost to Produce

Understand the cost of producing the information assets needed to deliver your business outcomes.

Become Data-Drive

Understand your people, systems and data, and identify opportunities to improve in business terms, by proactively facilitating data-driven culture change.

Download our Data Literacy Whitepaper

Data Literacy is the new core competence of the digital business; LINQ enables Infonomics by helping to create the vocabulary you need to ensure data and information features as part of your change conversation.