Is Data Unification a process problem? 

Physical unification of spacecraft has a long track record of success-from the Apollo-Soyuz mission that connected 5-foot nozzles after traveling ~1 million miles to SpaceX’s recent recapture of its 400-foot Starship with “chopsticks”.  Enterprise data unification has a less glamorous history.  While declarations of victory abound, the reality is not pretty.  Every data analyst knows that joining two simple datasets is still cumbersome, and an enterprise data-merge involving multiple systems is near-impossible.  Most organizations struggle to unify data on customers, suppliers and products.  Why?  The textbook answer is that it is a “process” problem.  But if this were true, surely many disciplined companies would have executed “best practices” already.  It is time to admit that the problem is deeper.  Data unification is a logical problem, not just a physical one. And logical data management has not kept pace with data complexity.  Closing this gap requires a new wave of innovation.