Reverse ETL

The Data infrastructure within firms has evolved continuously. Processes like ETL have enabled firms transform, store and utilize zettabytes of transactional data. I recently came across a blog post by Census that discusses a relatively new concept — The Reverse ETL . Unlike ETL infrastructure where data from a warehouse is utilized for analytics, Business Intelligence, and Reporting purposes only, Reverse ETL utilizes data from the warehouse for real-time Operational intelligence . How exciting !

Reverse ETL is a data automation tool that pulls usable data out of the data warehouse, validates it automatically, and sends it to operational applications like Zendesk, Salesforce and Marketo for real time, on the fly analytics.

Benefits of Reverse ETL

Real-time analytics based on historical data in the warehouse saves a user from the hassle of manually connecting the dots between the operational world and the past.

For Example

1. In ETL infrastructure, based on data from Analytics and Reporting team, management realizes that a customer could be a potential churn. The information then arrives at the desk of the sales team who try various customer retention schemes. This process has both time and cost implications. In the reverse ETL architecture, the same intelligence could be built into Customer relationship management tools; providing sales and marketing team with an early insight into potential churns.
2. Customer complaints could be prioritized automatically based on customer worthiness built at the back of the Recency, Frequency, and Monetary model.
3. Automate Prioritization of customers support tickets based on their product usage.

How Census helps operationalize Data

Unlike ETL, where destination of data is a warehouse, Reverse ETL re-orchestrates the data infrastructure and shifts warehouse to the middle . A reverse ETL tool like Census connects to the data warehouse and syncs historical data into apps like Salesforce, Marketo, and Google Sheets to help customer success, sales, and marketing teams leverage historical data .

Reverse ETL

The availability of historical data, on the fly within operational systems saves time, increases productivity, and enables various teams automate mundane tasks whilst making effective and better informed decisions in a fraction of the time.

Challenges to building a Reverse ETL infrastructure

1. Data Visibility — A warehouse stores firm wide data. A part of this data is critical and requires visibility rules to ensure only those personnel who are authorized to view actually view the data.
2. To Build or to Rent — Like any software, building a reverse ETL tool requires time, effort and money. Data teams ought to perform a cost versus benefit analysis before arriving at decision to develop the product in-house or hire a data solution provider like Census.