Background
Over nearly five decades, W.R. Berkley has evolved into an industry leader by acquiring more than 50 independent insurers. In the words of Rob Reynolds, Berkley’s Chief Data & Analytics Officer, these “truly are separate companies…separate databases, separate reporting, separate everything.” As a result, making sense at the enterprise level has become an enormous challenge. Analysts often don’t know what's available to them, what another team has, or what they have created that could potentially be reused by somebody else. Compounding this problem, separate companies can use different language for talking about the same thing. People looking for data sometimes don’t even know what to ask for.
Response
Berkley knew they needed a data catalog, but they also knew they needed help selecting and implementing one. A catalog only adds value if people use it, and Berkley’s unique culture wouldn't accommodate a one-size fits all solution. To help, Berkley chose SingleStone to evaluate their needs, to understand what problems users needed the most help solving, and to provide an unbiased assessment of what was out there. Settling on data.world as the best choice for a catalog because of its intuitive and collaborative user interface, SingleStone navigated Berkley through difficult technical and usability questions in a flexible and disciplined way, always focusing on delivering a tool that people throughout the organization would love.
Results
- Selected, implemented, customized, and rolled out data.world as an enterprise data catalog
- Deployed custom reports for monitoring user engagement and satisfaction
- Created workflows for onboarding metadata from 50+ operating units
- Built custom AI-enabled tools for efficiently harmonizing metadata
- Developed a user-centered plan for reducing barriers and driving adoption