Accelerating business excellence at Keyrus with Talend’s Early Access Program (EAP)

Talend regularly invites existing customers and partners to participate in Early Access Programs (EAP) to try out selected new features in a pre-production environment. Building on the success of Talend’s EAP program, we recently had an insightful conversation with Simon Leroy, Talend Alliance Partner at Keyrus, to uncover how this program has enabled Keyrus to deliver enhanced services and support to its clientele.

Keyrus is a global consultancy that develops data and digital solutions for performance management. With more than 3500 employees in 26 countries, the firm offers a full range of services spanning management and transformation consulting, business intelligence, digital strategy and performance, and enterprise management solutions. Keyrus has been a Talend partner since 2010 and has been recognized as a Talend Partner of the Year for three years in a row. The firm helps its clients leverage the Talend platform by providing them with a deep understanding of the platform’s capabilities and how those capabilities align with their strategic objectives.

Simon, can you tell us about your role at Keyrus?

I'm in charge of the partnership between Talend and Keyrus. My role involves leveraging Talend consultants' knowledge to ensure clients understand the tools, practices, and methodologies needed to use the Talend platform effectively. I'm also responsible for building and managing our sales teams to sell our products.

What are the top three challenges your clients face regarding data?

The first major challenge is achieving a unified, 360-degree customer view. Many of our clients undertake projects to unify and enhance their customer view — it is vital to ensure their customer data is consistent and of high quality. The second challenge revolves around securely sharing data with partners. We work with clients bound by stringent regulatory compliance requirements, who need a trusted and secure data-sharing mechanism. Lastly, while there is a growing adoption of modern data platforms, there is still a significant presence of legacy data platforms that remain deployed. At Keyrus, we help clients navigate this transition by incorporating newer, faster technologies — like Talend’s modern data management capabilities, including data quality and governance, while maintaining compatibility with legacy systems so they can get more value from their data, faster.

Can you share an example of how you helped a client overcome a data challenge?

Certainly! Let me share an example involving a large airport in southern France.

About three years ago, they decided to change their airport information system. Keyrus helped build data management jobs and rules on the Talend platform, enabling a seamless data flow across the airport's operations. We implemented some data stewardship functions to address data issues they encountered during the data transfers. Any delay in data transfers can result in delays throughout the airport, so it is extremely important that the data is not hindered as it moves throughout the airport’s systems.

Today, when a traveler arrives at this airport in southern France, Talend’s software powers everything — from the intensity of the lights on the runway to starting the baggage carousel, updating the flight boards with the latest information, and generating invoices for the associated companies. All the airport's data processes rely on Talend — which is complemented by Keyrus' framework development built on top of the Talend platform — along with other tools Keyrus developed for the airport to administer and supervise all this data transfer. This is a prime example of how Keyrus leverages Talend to address complex data challenges.

How has Talend’s Early Access Program (EAP) benefited Keyrus and your clients?

I think of the EAP as part of the DNA between Talend and Keyrus. Being part of the program helps us gain invaluable insights into Talend's innovative and upcoming features. It also enables us to demonstrate to our clients how deeply we understand the Talend platform. This assures them that we know about the latest tools and capabilities, and they are more confident in our ability to use these new capabilities when they become available.

Participating in the recent EAP program has proven highly beneficial for our team, particularly by enhancing our understanding of Talend's new data observability and quality capabilities. We are thrilled about the new capabilities and are confident in Talend's ability to establish data trust and maintain high data quality. Furthermore, Talend‘s self-service capabilities mean that more users can be empowered to unlock greater value from their data — making it even more appealing for our clients to adopt these solutions.

Are there any specific examples of things you’ve seen as part of the EAP that have helped you win clients?

Participating in the EAP has helped us gain more clients by showcasing Talend’s unique capabilities and how they can solve business problems.

In one instance, we had the opportunity to present to an existing Talend customer who primarily utilized data integration capabilities. Following a webinar on data quality, they expressed a keen interest in delving deeper into data preparation and stewardship. Leveraging the EAP, we seized the perfect moment to demonstrate the potential of Talend Data Inventory as the initial step in a data quality project. During the demo, we presented a dataset within Data Inventory, highlighting its ease of use and the ability to spot data quality issues quickly.

With the Talend Trust Score™, we could showcase how easy it is to get a sense of quality across datasets or even for a particular dataset, all without much effort.

Another example is with a client who was not a Talend user at the time. They were using SQL queries for their data cleansing and were clearly running up against the limitations of that setup. During our session, we demonstrated to them the power of using Data Preparation, Data Inventory, and Data Stewardship together to ensure high-quality data. They could immediately see the value and the impact it would have on their business.

Simon, thank you so much for your time and for sharing these insights.

Thank you! We couldn’t be more proud to be named a Talend Partner of the Year for three years in a row, and we look forward to continuing to work closely with the Talend team in the future.

With Talend's Winter '23 release, several features that were previously in EAP — including enhanced data observability with Data Console, Talend Cloud Management Console, Universal Spark, and trusted user management capabilities — are now generally available to everyone. You can begin using these features by signing up for a FREE trial.

For more information about Keyrus’ partnership with Talend, their services, and how you can work with them on your next data project, click here.