As your business has grown so have your data sources. ERP, CRM, SFA, EDI - with all these data sources to keep track of how do you know which data is accurate? How do you transfer data from one system to another? These questions drive the need for an affordable, easy to deploy and expandable system that allows small and mid-sized companies to automate the process of transferring data lowering operational costs and ensuring consistency of data throughout the organization.
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Data Conversion Services
Data conversion services are contract-based outsourcing services designed
to help companies transform data from one format into another. While
data conversion services can be used for very esoteric forms of data
conversion - like Microfiche to digital, the majority of data conversion
services are applied to the migration of legacy data from one in-house
system to another. An example of this form of data conversion
services might be the migration of ERP data from a legacy ERP system
to a new one from a different vendor. Because the two data structures
are different, data conversion services might be employed for the migration.
Why Companies Use Data Conversion Services
The key benefit to using data conversion services revolves around
a cost/benefit analysis. Specifically, many businesses feel that
data conversion services, despite their high costs, provide greater
benefit than having to manage data conversion in-house. Data
conversion services are often associated with large-scale data migration
projects where the company in question can justify the hiring of data
conversion services under the umbrella of services for a task that
the company will not need long-term. Depending on the type of
data conversion services required this can in fact be the less costly
option, but often businesses underestimate their own abilities when
making such a choice. As a rule data conversion services are
best used when the data conversion required is extremely large and
the conversion process will be extremely complicated, where data might
need to be heavily manipulated before it is migrated.
Drawbacks of Data Conversion Services
The single biggest drawback of data conversion services is that it
is not easily repeatable. The very nature of data conversion
services means that they tend to be "project centric" and
become onerously expensive when contracted for multiple projects over
protracted periods of time. Data conversion services then are
best used for limited project runs that fit the earlier criteria.
Alternatives to Data Conversion Services
Business have an alternative to data conversion services and that's
data integration. Unlike data conversion services, data integration
can performed in-house and can provide a repeatable, easily scalable
method of migrating data from one system to another. Unlike data
conversion services, which tend to be very project focused, data integration
can be performed on a "as needed" basis - giving businesses
the flexibility to migrate only part of their legacy data while leaving
larger migrations of non-critical data for later times. Because
of data integration, data conversion services have, over the past few
years, begun to specialize in more esoteric forms of data conversion
services projects.
Data Conversion Services For Sub-Enterprise Companies
While data conversion services provide a valuable service for large
organizations, smaller companies often find that they can't justify
the costs associated with data conversion services. For such
organizations a better option might be to identify vendors of data
integration software who might be able to contract for the data conversion
services. Because data integration is used in data conversion
services, data integration companies often have the necessary expertise
to help smaller organizations with their data conversion services needs.
