In conversation with Or Lenchner, CEO of Bright Data

In the digital world, gathering data to help companies better understand their customers and business is relatively easy. In fact, it has become so easy that the danger of having too much data to deal with arises. The concept of utilizing big data for business profitability is not a new one, even back in the 1960's organizations were collecting numbers and manually adding them to spreadsheets in order to predict and uncover trends and insights. But today, the way of collecting data has evolved. Organizations capture all types of data that are available online and apply analytics to generate important results that will be used to improve different aspects of the business. Analytics Insight is putting a spotlight on Bright Data, a data company led by Or Lenchner, working to benefit society as a whole with a transparent internet, where data is shared by everyone, driving an open competitive market. In an exclusive interview with him, we gathered valuable insights from Or Lenchner.

Kindly brief us about the company, its specialization, and the services that your company offers. 

Or Lenchner: The Internet has become the world's largest database. To tap into it, companies and organizations use Bright Data's SaaS platform to collect large amounts of publicly available unstructured web-data and transform it into structured data. This reliable and relevant data allows business decision-makers to get up-to-the-minute information that leads their strategic planning and mission-critical moves. Bright Data's customers include most of the large online commerce, finance, security, and travel firms, among others. With our technology, they benefit from near-live data insights, allowing them to understand and act on the latest decision-making factors.

Please brief us about the products/services/solutions you provide to your customers and how they get value out of it.

Or Lenchner: One of our most popular tools is the Data Collector. It's the first-of-its-kind automated data collection tool, which allows our customers to collect the most accurate data at scale easily and quickly. It removes the complexity from the entire process. The Data Collector integrates and automates all stages of the data collection process for customers, but leaves them in full control over the data they collect. Customers can choose from hundreds of existing collection templates. They can 'click and collect' a new target without any prior coding knowledge. Alternatively, they can use the IDE code editor, where they can write more complex crawl code, and the system extracts the data they need without any manual intervention or onboarding required.

For customers, building a system to collect data effectively usually takes months and requires ongoing management and maintenance. The Data Collector solves this issue and allows them to collect the most reliable data at scale in a matter of mere minutes.

What are some of the challenges faced by your company today?

Or Lenchner: We are living in an era of data explosion, where the need for data is going to grow exponentially. To keep up with such growth, technological innovation must move even faster. This poses one challenge on the entire data collection world: defining and creating ethical guidelines for entire operations to follow. Much has been said about issues dealing with data privacy, but very little has been said about the technology and methodology that support it – the behind-the-scenes operation. Isn't it time that we look at that as well?

I think, first and foremost, every operation must be transparent about its own guidelines, such as the cases they are willing or unwilling to engage in, the data sourcing operation, etc. This would be a very good first step.

Besides, we need to accept that bots are part of this equation. The more online data the world generates, the more we need to automate the process to make us all more efficient. The growing need for data is evident everywhere.

Bots are a technology tool, and they rely on the information we feed them. We are responsible for keeping them on the good and ethical side, and we need to continue to ensure that they remain on this path. We live in an "automate or be automated" world – that means we all need to keep a responsible and watchful eye on our fast-moving technology tools. The fact is our digital economy relies on them.

Would you like to highlight a few use cases where analytics has benefitted the organization tremendously?

Or Lenchner: Many different case studies highlight the good that can be done with data collection. Just one example would be our work with Mathison, the leading diversity hiring technologycompany. For background, Mathison centralizes hundreds of inclusive talent networks and uses AI to help employers find candidates for their most important roles. Bright Data's role is to gather and source information from diverse talent networks to identify talent. Once Bright Data collects this information, Mathison presents the data about job seekers to companies looking to hire diverse candidates, allowing them to reach out and start recruiting. In the case of Mathison, whose portfolio includes users such as Hello Fresh, TripAdvisor, and Sonos, data collection helps create a diverse and inclusive workforce.

How C-suite executives can leverage data to deliver business value to their organizations?

Or Lenchner: The most successful data-driven programs are the ones championed by C-suite executives at an organization. Once you have buy-in from the C-suite, it can be a smoother journey to transform your data collection into information that can aid in decision-making.

However, not just any kind of data should be used to deliver business value. Previously, relied-upon types of data, such as quarterly earnings, just don't cut it anymore for today's always-changing business landscape. Instead, the C-suite should leverage external data sources or alternative data to drive decision-making and business-critical strategy. Just a couple examples of alternative data include measuring growth by monitoring employee counts on LinkedIn and tracking trade shipments to predict which way revenue is heading. The only true limitation to alternative data is a company's ability and creativity to utilize and integrate it.

What are your growth plans for the next 12 months?

Or Lenchner: In the next year, we will be continuing our work and ensuring that with the growth of this hugely important domain there will also be the technology that removes every complex matter and simplifies the entire operation. Data is one of the fastest-growing domains and probably the most important one to drive forward our digital economy. Our smart systems rely on it and will continue to do so. We will continue to ensure that we feed our customers with the most trustworthy data as quickly as they need it, which can be fed to their systems fast – helping them make the most critical decisions for their organizations. This is our most important mission.

One of our biggest focuses at the moment is our Bright Initiative, a program that partners with NGOs, NPOs, and academic institutions to address social issues as well as educational needs surrounding data collection. We believe that, as market leaders, we must take on the added responsibility to promote a responsible data collection practice. We've already been able to make a profound impact, whether it is by advising government officials on a national data strategy or holding workshops with over 70 universities to educate the next generation of data practitioners. We're excited to continue this work in the years to come and we invite more organizations to join us.