Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionising the way businesses operate, offering automation, deeper insights and streamlined processes. But here’s the thing you shouldn’t overlook: you can only optimise AI when it’s built on SSOT, or Single Source of Truth data. Without this, you won’t get the level of automation and insights you expect because your data is not structured in a way that AI can understand.
A SSOT ensures that all your business data—from customer information to sales records and financials—is accurate, consistent and accessible from a central location. To achieve Single Source of Truth data, you will need to have an IT infrastructure that supports the concept.
When your business data is structured in a way that is accessible for (check it out…) AI, Automation and Business Intelligence tools, you can make huge improvements in processes, find efficient ways of working and gain a level of business intelligence from blending data from different departments, in different formats and from multiple sources. Here are a few examples:
AI can analyse both successful and unsuccessful deals, learn from these patterns and instantly update your sales team with win/loss analysis, presented in a way that is easy to understand. You can also evaluate the profitability of each customer if you can cross-reference income from a customer account (from your finance system) with the cost of marketing or maintaining an account (marketing cost analyses including payroll data).
By linking AI tools to your Single Source of Truth data, your employees can quickly access accurate information about processes or policies. This reduces time spent searching for the latest versions of documents and sifting through incomplete or outdated records.
AI can handle many routine accounting tasks, and most accounting software packages today are built for the cloud. This means they are ready to take advantage of AI, Automation, Advanced Analytics and digitised processes. Unless you have Single Source of Truth data, you will still struggle to automate month end close without extensive, manual data handling. Why would you do that when there are tools available to lighten the load? If you really want to save time and reduce accounting errors, you’ll need structured and integrated data that’s easily accessible, in a secure cloud environment.
A working paper called Generative AI at Work, prepared by the National Bureau of Economic Research in April 2023, detailed the productivity impact of a generative AI tool on a customer service team that used AI-driven chatbots to assist live agents. This improved its productivity by nearly 14%. AI tools guided conversations, allowing agents to handle more issues per hour, with the highest gains seen among newer agents who resolved 35% more issues than before. This efficiency led to a higher degree of customer satisfaction and reduced escalations to management, showcasing how even small changes in automation can make a big impact.
AI is only as good as the infrastructure environment in which it operates. To fully benefit from AI and Single Source of Truth data, you need a robust, secure, and scalable IT foundation. This is where Ziptech comes in with our Technology Success Pyramid and Success Wheel.
Built on the most secure Microsoft technologies, we lead businesses like yours through these frameworks to eliminate data silos, prioritise and automate cybersecurity, and pave the way for seamless collaboration across the business.
Your business technology should simplify how your teams operate and improve productivity, not complicate it. Our infrastructure methodologies are designed to ensure your IT environment not only supports daily operations but drives efficiency through AI and automation. Our clients, including businesses like SBC and Maidenhead Aquatics, have experienced increased productivity and seamless operations thanks to our tailored IT solutions.
We offer a 90-Day Technology and Productivity Transformation that aligns your Microsoft infrastructure with your business goals, addressing key areas such as data management, cybersecurity, and cloud architecture.
Microsoft provides tools that support SSOT by centralising data, enhancing collaboration, and ensuring consistent updates across systems.
Acts as a hub for team collaboration, allowing users to access documents, conversations, and updates in one location. Teams integrates with other Microsoft tools like SharePoint and OneDrive, creating a unified workspace where the latest documents and data can be accessed by all team members.
Supports version control and centralised document storage, which keeps all files and records in one place. SharePoint’s versioning ensures users are working from the latest document, minimising duplication and confusion. It also includes workflows for approvals, keeping everyone aligned with current and approved data.
Power BI integrates data from multiple sources into one visual dashboard. Users can pull data from SharePoint, Excel and SQL databases, among others, creating a consistent view of key metrics. Real-time updates keep decision-makers informed with the most current data available.
Used within Microsoft’s Power Platform, Dataverse allows you to standardise data storage across applications. It integrates seamlessly with Power Apps and Power Automate, ensuring data usage is consistent across applications.
Individual users can store and share files within the Microsoft ecosystem. It’s ideal for document access on the go. It reduces discrepancies across documents stored in different locations because it syncs changes automatically.
Provides infrastructure for larger-scale data storage and processing. With Azure, data can be centralised and accessible by approved applications and users, ensuring everyone works with a unified data source. You can find out more about our methodologies for implementing Azure for success right here in our free guide.
When you integrate these tools, teams can access, update and collaborate on the same information, creating a strong single source of truth for data-driven decisions. Many SMBs already use Microsoft products and there are tools that can help you optimize your existing IT environment. For example, with Microsoft Graph, you can easily integrate data from Office 365 and Azure into a Single Source of Truth without needing to rebuild your infrastructure from scratch.
Optimising Microsoft 365 and Azure for a Single Source of Truth provides centralised, reliable data that supports real-time collaboration and decision-making. By integrating tools like Teams, SharePoint, Power BI and Dataverse, businesses can unify their data, ensuring everyone accesses consistent, up-to-date information. This approach reduces data silos, minimises errors and streamlines workflows by eliminating the need to manage multiple versions of the same document or dataset. With Azure’s robust data infrastructure, organisations also benefit from enhanced security, scalability, and data governance, making the entire information ecosystem more reliable and efficient.
To set up your AI for success, your data must be in order. Here’s how you can get started:
1. Audit your data to identify where your data resides and assess its quality.
2. Cleanse and standardize your data by eliminating duplicates, correcting errors and ensuring all data follows consistent formats.
3. Review key processes and make sure your processes, policies and procedures are documented and up-to-date.
4. Use the right tools such as Microsoft Graph to integrate and secure your data.
At Ziptech, we specialise in helping businesses build the right infrastructure to support AI-driven transformation. From creating a Single Source of Truth to ensuring your data is secure and accessible, we’re here to guide you every step of the way.
Let’s Talk about how we can help you unlock the full potential of AI in your business. Click on this link to Contact Us: Contact – https://www.ziptechservices.co.uk/contact-us/
