So is everyone’s technology truly open? To respond, Ton An, a fellow father, asked the time-old dad joke: “When is a door not a door?” To that, I replied, “When it’s ajar.” Who would have thought one of the first jokes I learned as a kid would teach me such a surprising lesson: Sometimes people say their technology is open when it’s really ajar.

The reality is, ajar definitions of open are everywhere and can be quite misleading. For example, think about the integration of multiple data sets. Integration does not mean open. When multiple data sets are integrated, technology will allow client data to come in, but not freely. Clients can’t work with the data, play with it or extract it, taking the flexibility out altogether. These types of platforms aren’t truly agnostic because they’re one way and one-sided, and this inflexibility prevents them from being truly open.

At NielsenIQ, we have a much different view of open, one that is not ajar or a “bit more open.” To us, open means exactly that—open. We define open as the ability to use different parties and types of data, models to enrich, and applications to consume and take action.

Since our technology is truly open, there are a ton of benefits to you and your business. Here’s what you couldn’t do until now:

• Our data, your way: We can be your technology solution or you can plug into ours. Our flexible technology allows you to grow and scale with our data any way you choose.
• Integrate data sources from multiple places: Our data, your data, third-party data, supplier data, etc.—all in one secure data lake. This provides an integrated experience for you and your users. We have been able to seamlessly show our users the levers of price, promotion, distribution and our media data in one application. Now, you can see the whole picture instead of making decisions that potentially offset the other.
• Seamlessly collaborate: Our technology allows for seamless collaboration and decision making, internally across the organization and externally with your retailers and vendors. Finally, everyone is using the same system, the same sources of data, the same analytics, etc., so decisions no longer compete with one another in silos. Ultimately, you will have one single, consistent global solution.

This open, secure technology environment provides access to everything from our reference data to our data science models, enabling you to move faster and integrate seamlessly into your own architecture and workflows. It also allows for faster development between NielsenIQ, you, and our Connected Partners.

With all of this said, I hope you feel empowered to ask the next person who tells you their technology is open:

• What do you really mean by open?
• Does your technology use open source code?
• How adaptable and flexible is your technology to change for the future?
• How does your technology scale?
• Does your technology use the cloud?
• Does your technology play nice with others? And is it truly agnostic?

Simply ajar technology isn’t good enough for your business when you can have truly open technology, like Nielsen Connect, which ultimately gives you the choice and control to evolve beyond data management.

Finally. Your future, transformed.