The IMD Wrap: Catalog shopping: Another new entrant tackles data discovery and procurement

My editor Tony Malakian complains that I write sentences too long. Opening ledes the length of a Stephen King novella. Paragraphs like James Joyce’s Ulysses (but with more data and fewer brogues). So, today, I’ll be short and sweet. No long, rambling sentences. No run-ons. Text tight, and totally to the point, Tony. My sentences have been too long.

You know what else has been too long? Since we last saw you, dear reader, at our North American Financial Information Summit. This year’s event takes place on May 16 at the ETC Venues space at 360 Madison Avenue in New York. The agenda is, as always, packed with topics for everyone, with an emphasis this year on the data implications of AI, risk, regulation, and technology across the front and back office.

I’ll be moderating two discussions on the day: One takes a look at the evolving roles and responsibilities of future data management professionals (Watch this space for an upcoming feature on this topic soon). The other examines the cost of data management, and will look at ways to optimize spend through better data management. One aspect of that is gaining visibility into ancillary costs beyond just the price tag of the data itself. Another aspect is the use of new tools, such as data catalogs.

I can hear Tony saying, “Aww Max, not data catalogs agaaaaaaain!”

Yes, catalogs again. Like a parent telling their kid to eat their vegetables, I’m basically going to force-feed you the data catalog diet. Because, like vegetables, they’re good for you. They can help reduce data spend by—when integrated with your inventory management system—providing greater visibility into what you’re spending on certain services, and helping to identify cheaper alternatives that you may not be aware of. 

It’s this ability—painstakingly cataloging vendors and their products and services to be able to search by data type, content, and use case—that also makes catalogs a strategic tool for identifying and exploring fit-for-purpose data. The ability to look at the data needs of everyone across a firm, match those needs with available services, and integrate different tools to automate parts of that request, approval, procurement and delivery process is compelling.

It’s for this reason that providers like Expand Research and VendEx Solutions are seeing traction for their offerings. And as data budgets continue to come under pressure, it’s no wonder that other new entrants also want to get in on the act. One such newcomer—though its two founders have more than 55 years of experience in banking technology and data roles—is Archedata, a startup provider aiming to stitch together and automate as much of the data discovery and exploration, ordering, and approvals process as possible.

Archedata’s Kairos platform has clearly been built by people who’ve been there and done that, and who have faced the exact problems that it’s designed to solve.

An executive at one of Archedata’s partners, a data provider, says Kairos has obviously been built by someone with many years of experience in market data: “The concept may not be exactly novel, but the way they’ve solved it is more advanced than I’ve seen before.”

Indeed, the first incarnation of the platform was built at a large asset manager before co-founders Rich Brown and Hongfei Huang decided to build a commercial version and bring it to a broader audience.

While the platform is intended to streamline the process of finding and ordering data and then passing through compliance reviews, business approval, service provisioning, inventory updates, and legal reviews, it also has practical checks and balances, alerting all users to any pending tasks or notifications, and escalating issues to management if individuals don’t respond. This also avoids the risks of someone missing an email in the deluge of other important messages every day.

And that works both ways: instead of having to email or call people to find out the status of a dataset you requested, Kairos’s dashboard gives each user a view into their requests and requirements, notes Bernardo Santiago, CEO of market data consultancy S4 Market Data, who became familiar with Kairos at one of his client firms.

Kairos gives the same dashboard to all users within an organization, whether their role involves sourcing, managing, using or approving data. Depending on their role, each has access to different tools and functions, but all use the same underlying data management platform that combines internal and external datasets. 

So, one can look at what you’re spending on specific datasets or vendors already, compare those to potential alternatives available in the market, and even begin the process of ordering them. 

And in addition to like-for-like alternatives, the system can also surface different data types that could be used in place of another—for example, point-of-sale or foot traffic data instead of credit card transactions data. It may not be an exact substitute, but it could be an adequate one, and serves as a constant reminder to all vendors that they’re not the only game in town, Brown says.

From its partners, including alt data aggregator Eagle Alpha, a large data vendor, and a provider of a catalog of vendor services, who have databases of vendors and their data services, users can filter by sources, vendors, regions, asset class, or custom topics. For example, they can set up collections of datasets classified by industry segments, such as oil and gas. Users can also simply perform an elastic search for keywords relating to what they’re looking for. Once they find it, they can add their own notes on the vendor or service, and decide who else—if anyone—they want to share those with.

Not only does the system track usage and allow data managers, desk managers, and individual users—thereby promoting ownership and responsibility—to see individuals’ and groups’ usage and spend; it also allows managers to survey those users as to their opinions of specific services, and have users rate the quality of those services and whether they want to renew or cancel them. 

And if the cost of an item that a user wants to order or renew is above a pre-set amount, the system can force the user to justify in writing why they need it—and can also use machine learning to extract text from user comments to use in negotiations with a vendor, just as it captures any recent service issues to present in negotiations. Collecting and curating facts and opinions will make a more compelling argument for what you want to achieve in negotiations, whether it be a price cut, a justification for reducing services, or an improvement in service quality.

Kairos gets good reviews from those who’ve seen it in action: S4’s Santiago says that at a time when “every buy-side firm is trying to create their own catalog,” Kairos takes a “thoughtful” approach to solving all sides of a challenge that affects the data procurement cycle.

And though the gist of data catalogs has been to reduce data spend, sometimes painting vendors as modern-day Sheriffs of Nottingham, Kairos—or indeed, any catalog, properly used—could actually bring greater confidence to both sides of the vendor-supplier relationship.

“The end-to-end flow and ability to see exactly who’s using what helps us as a vendor to see that a client is being diligent about that,” says the executive at the unnamed data vendor partner.

So, eat your data catalogs. They’re good for all of us.

If you’d like to share your thoughts, experiences, or opinions—privately or publicly—you can email me at max.bowie@infopro-digital,com. Or better yet, register for the North American Financial Information Summit and come share them in person! We hope to see you there.