Zaloni Analyzes Big Data to Improve Business

By Zoe Francis, Hacienda Network Staff Writer

Zaloni takes massive quantities of data and boils it down into easily understandable information to help businesses improve efficiency or better market their products.

"What we do is very technical," Matt MacKinnon, Zaloni's product management director, said. "The best way to describe it is that we are a big data company."

Zaloni was founded in 2007 as a web development company, but quickly realized that analyzing big data was the wave of the future.

Big data emerged as an industry transformer as companies like Google, Yahoo, Facebook and Twitter began gathering massive quantities of information from their customers. An open-source software named Hadoop was developed to capture these huge amounts data.

The problem, the founders of Zaloni realized, is that big data means nothing if companies have no clue how to properly use that information.

"Zaloni is an expert at helping companies get the same benefit from big data that these Internet companies have been able to use," MacKinnon said. "It's like a new type of database."

In the past, companies might compile data about separate departments within that company, such as human resources, finances, sales and manufacturing. Big data allows all of this information to be compiled into one source.

The problem becomes how to analyze such massive amounts of information. That is where Zaloni has developed its expertise specializing in big data analysis since shortly after the company started.

"There are very few companies that have been doing this type of work for as long as we have," MacKinnon said. "The learning curve, time and investment in trying to do this on your own is very risky. Having a partner like us to help companies get it right on the first try can reduce a lot of the risk."

Zaloni offers two key aspects to companies - professional services and the Bedrock software developed by the company.

"The professional services are our expertise and consulting," he explained. "Bedrock is the product that we developed. It helps us and our customers manage the data in Hadoop. Customers are coming to us for our expertise. We're working with them as a consultant and, where appropriate, we are also selling our software product that helps us help them with Hadoop."

Zaloni can help improve a company's bottom line through marketing or simply by improving efficiency.

A credit card or telecommunications provider might use Zaloni to gather customer information so that those companies can better serve those customers by targeting them with specialized products or services.

A healthcare firm, on the other hand, might use Zaloni to assess the risk of hospital patient returning for care if that person is released too soon from the hospital.

"Big data is totally dependent on the customer," MacKinnon said. "The problem that you solve is very dependent on what business you're in."

North Carolina-based Zaloni opened an office in Hacienda in May of last year to be closer to the hotbed of technology in Silicon Valley. The company gets new customers through direct sales and by partnering with the four major firms that sell Hadoop software.

"It all comes back to our expertise," MacKinnon said. "Companies can leverage the skills and expertise at a company like Zaloni. This big data innovation has allowed co to collect and use volumes of data that were never before possible."

Learn more about Zaloni at zaloni.com.

Photo: Bijoy Bora, Principal, with Zaloni Inc located on Chabot Drive in Hacienda.

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