# Swiss Accelerator for Zazuko Flux

**READ-ONLY**. continue here: https://github.com/zazuko/admin/blob/main/tenders/swiss-accelerator/Application.md

This document is based on the word document from here:
- https://www.innosuisse.ch/inno/en/home/promotion-of-national-projects/swiss-accelerator/short-application.html#-686959649
- https://www.innosuisse.ch/dam/inno/en/dokumente/innovation-project/swissaccelerator/short-application-form-swiss-accelerator.docx.download.docx/PROJECT_ACRONYM_short_application.docx

## Evaluation Criteria
From https://www.innosuisse.ch/inno/en/home/promotion-of-national-projects/swiss-accelerator/short-application.html#-686959649

### 1. Innovation:

* Level of innovation: The innovation has a high degree of novelty compared to currently available solutions and has disruption potential.
* Scalability: The business model associated with the innovation is scalable and has high growth potential.
* Scientific basis and feasibility: The innovation is based on a technology that has been sufficiently validated in a relevant environment in order to assess the potential and evaluate the risk.
* Intellectual property: The company owns the necessary intellectual property rights to ensure freedom to operate (FTO).
* Timing: The timing of the innovation is appropriate with respect to relevant factors such as market conditions as well as social and technological developments.

### 2. Value creation:

* Market potential: The target market for the innovation is appropriate, suitably defined and assessed.
* Competition: Thorough analysis of the competition is available. The unique selling points (USP) and the key differentiators from competitors are defined. The company can adequately protect itself from competition (e.g., through intellectual property rights, speed to market, etc.).
* Marketing: There is a convincing, well thought-out commercialisation strategy including a business and revenue model.
* Sustainability: The innovation contributes to the sustainable development of society, the economy and/or the environment (e.g. to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals).
* Value creation in Switzerland: The implementation of the innovation increases value creation in Switzerland.

### 3. Project set-up:

* Project planning: There is a clear and realistic implementation plan with defined milestones, work packages, deliverables and resources.
* Team: The team has the capacity and skills to implement and bring the innovation to market, or has or will have access to all critical skills.
* Risk management: The most important risks have been identified and realistic mitigation measures defined.
* Key partners: The key partners needed to develop and commercialise the innovation have been identified and the necessary partnerships have been initiated or established, depending on the status and planning of the project.

### 4. Cost-benefit ratio:

* Cost-benefit ratio: This is a high-risk, high-benefit project. Without the funding contribution from Swiss Accelerator, there is a risk that the company will miss the ideal moment.

# Requirements to submit
- Short application form (project acronym_short_application.docx & … .pdf)
- Pitch deck of max. 10 slides (project acronym_A1_pitchdeck.pdf)
- [ ] TODO Adrian/Benjamin/Robert
- Certificate of registration in the commercial register (project acronym_A2_register.pdf)
- Company organisation chart incl. Board of Directors and a list of the advisors most relevant for this project (if any) (project acronym_A3_organisation.pdf)
- [ ] TODO Robert
- Optional: Document of max. three pages in total to provide e.g. Letters of Intent, etc. (project acro-nym_A4_addendum.pdf)
- TODO Adrian: Create sample LoI
- TODO Michael: Ask Bruno
- TODO Adrian: Ask SBB
- TODO Adrian: Ask Jean-Luc
- Text format: Arial, 10-point-font.
- Character limits must be respected, but also not taken as a target.
- The proposal must be submitted in English, German, French or Italian.
- There is no need for a signature.

- [ ] TODO Robert/David: Finish financial details in word

## Submission deadline
- Tuesday, 10 May 2022 (12:00 noon Central European Summer Time / CEST)

# Basic Information
Project title: (max. 100 characters, incl. blanks):
> Zazuko Flux: Data Asset Management Software as a Service

Project acronym:
> Zazuko Flux

Project title in English:

TODO

# Scratchpad

Based on hints from *Annotated Template*

## Innovation

##### Annotation

* Start with a bang! Inspire the investor to read on– What is the most compelling thing about your company? What are you doing that nobody else is? This could be along the following lines: “A
big problem today is X, and current solutions are not good; we propose Y which is innovative in aspects A, B and C, and is much more efficient / cheaper / solves issues which no one knew how to solve before”.
* Problem, solution & opportunity should be the ‘meat’ of your summary – what problem does this project solve, how does it solve it and what’s the market for this solution. This part should also include your value proposition and your unique selling point.
* It is recommended that you include graphics that illustrate the milestones, TRLs, already achieved.
* You may include results from early field trials, prototype development, reference site installations, etc.
* KPIs
* If you already have paying customers, don’t forget to mention them – this might be one of the most important factors in the evaluation.
* Phase 1 (only): Good understanding of need for a realistic and relevant analysis of market conditions, total potential market size and growth-rate, competitors and competitive offerings, key stakeholders, clear identification of opportunities for market introduction: potential for market creation is particularly sought after.

### Nuggets

* Alle wollen was "fertiges", deshalb Swiss Accelerator
*

## Project Setup

* Describe your team and their achievements and experience in relation to the approach you will be taking.
* Describe the roles of the team within your project. What is the role of the company's owner(s)? What are the main strengths and weaknesses of the team?
* **Technical/business experience of the team,** including management capacity to lead a growing team
* The industry experience of the management team has to be convincing. Make sure to show that you have relevant experience in all fields: technology, marketing, staffing, fundraising etc.
* Properly present your key people in the management structure.

### Team

Adrian Gschwend, Dipl. Ing. FH

Michael Rauch, Dipl. Ing. FH

Benjamin Hofstetter, Executive MBA, General Management
CAS Innovation Management, CAS Business Creation,
Dipl. Ing. FH in Computer science
Mobiliar Consulting and Development Enterprise Data Catalog

Michael Luggen

Thomas Bergwinkl

Magdalena Surówka

Irem Altioklar

Robert Henschel

### Advisors/LoI

Thomas Bodenmann, Master of Science, Informatik, Leiter Unternehmensarchitektur BLS

Jean-Luc Cochard

Jörg De Bernardi

Christian Trachsel

Roche?

Angeli?

Dreamlab?

Mäthu Fritschi https://www.avega.ch/?

Marcel Gabi / Swisscom SFO https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcelgabi/

### Fehlt

* Mehr UI/UX Entwicklung
* Business Development
*

# Artikel

Data centric catalog

Semantic data catalog

Domain data catalog

Data & asset catalog

Data as an asset management system

Data Asset Management System

* https://www.cpajournal.com/2019/06/24/managing-data-as-an-asset/
* The information age requires the development of information solutions, whether developing new applications to process data or to consistently manage and monitor data throughout the enterprise effectively and efficiently.
* Data becomes an asset when, under the right circumstances, it is transformed into information that contains economic characteristics and facilitates actionable insights
* To maximize the return on its data assets, all the parts of an organization need to contribute to the asset and its conversion into useful information.
* Most organizations maintain an asset register for physical assets that includes their location and other information necessary to manage them. Why would a modern organization not have the same inventory listing for data assets?
* Maintaining a “silo” style of data management results in ineffectiveness, including multiple sources of data, tolerance for poor data quality, no trust in data as a source for decision making, no collaboration across departments on data quality and usage, unclear roles and accountabilities over management of data, and overall poor data governance.
* It enables cross-departmental collaboration in data management and use.
* Because data is an intangible asset that is not recognized as an asset by modern accounting standards, it is often not managed as an asset. There is no good reason not to measure and manage data as the asset it is.
* Turning data into information is probably going to become the most critical operation of every business in the near future, if it is not already. Organizations must begin managing data and the information derived from it as real assets.
* Das Informationszeitalter erfordert die Entwicklung von Informationslösungen, sei es für die Entwicklung neuer Anwendungen zur Verarbeitung von Daten oder für die effektive und effiziente Verwaltung und Überwachung von Daten im gesamten Unternehmen.
* Um den Ertrag aus den Datenbeständen zu maximieren, müssen alle Teile eines Unternehmens zu den Beständen und deren Umwandlung in nützliche Informationen beitragen.
* Die meisten Unternehmen führen ein Bestandsverzeichnis für physische Vermögenswerte, das deren Standort und andere für die Verwaltung erforderliche Informationen enthält. Warum sollte ein modernes Unternehmen nicht dasselbe Bestandsverzeichnis für Datenbestände haben?
* Die Beibehaltung eines "Silo"-Stils bei der Datenverwaltung führt zu Ineffektivität, einschließlich mehrerer Datenquellen, Toleranz für schlechte Datenqualität, kein Vertrauen in Daten als Quelle für die Entscheidungsfindung, keine abteilungsübergreifende Zusammenarbeit bei der Datenqualität und -verwendung, unklare Rollen und Verantwortlichkeiten bei der Datenverwaltung und eine insgesamt schlechte Datenverwaltung.

## Check

* https://www.thedigitaltransformationpeople.com/channels/delivery/data-asset-management-dam/

* * Sugus

* https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidshaywitz/2019/01/16/novartis-ceo-who-wanted-to-bring-tech-into-pharma-now-explains-why-its-so-hard/

* we’ve had to spend most of the time just cleaning the data sets before you can even run the algorithm. That’s taken us years just to clean the datasets. I think people underestimate how little clean data there is out there, and how hard it is to clean and link the data.”
* mostly because the data…to link it up..….We are spending a lot of our energy just trying to get all of our data harmonized, so that some algorithm could maybe find anything of use.”

* https://towardsdatascience.com/the-gartner-magic-quadrant-for-metadata-management-was-just-scrapped-d84b2543f989

* This week, Gartner took a huge step toward this by scrapping its [Magic Quadrant for Metadata Management Solutions](https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/3993025/magic-quadrant-for-metadata-management-solutions) and replacing it with a [Market Guide for Active Metadata](https://www.gartner.com/document/4004082).

* A few years ago, data would primarily be consumed by the IT team in an organization. However, today data teams are more diverse than ever — data engineers, analysts, analytics engineers, data scientists, product managers, business analysts, citizen data scientists, and more. Each of these people have their own favorite and equally diverse data tools, everything from SQL, Looker, and Jupyter to Python, Tableau, dbt, and R.
* They involved rigid data governance committees, formal data stewards, complex technology set-ups, and lengthy implementation cycles. All in all, this process could take up to 18 months.
* Tools in this era were built on fundamentally monolith architectures and deployed on-premise. Each data system would have its own installation, and companies couldn’t roll out software changes by pushing a simple cloud update.
* Even trying out metadata tools from the Data Catalog 2.0 era involves significant engineering time for setup, not to mention at least 5 calls with a sales rep to get a demo.
* BINGO: It’s time for a modern metadata solution, one that is just as fast, flexible, and scalable as the rest of the modern data stack.
* Data Catalog 3.0s will be built on the premise of embedded collaboration that is key in today’s modern workplace, borrowing principles from Github, Figma, Slack, Notion, Superhuman, and other modern tools that are commonplace today. ABER: Wir verlinken auf die bestehenden Tools, wir ersetzen sie nicht.
* The Data Catalog 3.0 will help teams finally achieve the holy grail, a single source of truth about every data asset in the organization.
* BINGO: It should fundamentally leverage metadata as a form of data that can be searched, analyzed and maintained in the same way as all other types of data.
* In Kommentaren BINGO: Active metadata can detect lineage, usage and stats but also need to enforce a way to create business metadata. In the world of rapid agile software development, business metadata is always the first casualty.

# Abstract

* Everyone: Copy/paste your favorite sentences/paragraphs in here. I will in the end go through them and propose a 1000 character story based on them.

TODO

## Copy/paste

* Add your favorites here. If it's already in here, add a +1, +2, etc so I can see if it is popular

# Innovation

## What is the problem you want to solve?

~~Every medium and large enterprise has more than one data source or system that is essential to daily operations. But ~~most organizations struggle with how to value and manage data.

~~Maintaining a "silo" mindset when managing data leads to ineffectiveness. ~~Data is duplicated, poor data quality is tolerated, and trust in data sources for decision-making decreases.

To survive the information age, data must be treated like any other commodity, this is the way to maximize the return on its data assets. To do this, all parts of an organization must contribute to the inventory and its transformation into useful information.

Most companies maintain an inventory of physical assets that includes their location and other information needed for management. For data, there are few comparable systems.

*Zazuko Flux* enables companies to have a corresponding inventory register for data. It supports them in managing their *data as an asset* so as to derive the most value from it.

RH: Rewrite of the above text, likely a bit too long.

~~Every medium and ~~large enterprises operate~~s~~ multiple systems that are essential to daily operations. Each of those systems runs on data that is hard to manage and take advantage off outside that specific system.

Maintaining such "data silos" and the associated "silo" mindset severly limits a companies effectiveness. Data will inevitebly be duplicated and data quality deteriorates over time, leading to a loss of trust to utilize this data for decision making.

To survive in the information age, data must be treated like any other commodity and the return on data assets must be maximized. All parts of an organization need to be empowered to contribute to the inventory and its transformation into useful information.

Companies already maintain an inventory of physical assets that includes their location and other information needed for management. Maintaining a similar inventory for data is an emerging field with very few players.

*Zazuko Flux* enables companies to have a corresponding inventory register for data. It supports them in managing their *data as an asset* so as to derive the most value from it.

### Original

Jedes mittlere und große Unternehmen verfügt über mehr als eine Datenquelle oder ein System, das für den täglichen Betrieb unerlässlich ist. Doch viele Unternehmen tun sich schwer damit, Daten zu bewerten und zu verwalten.

Die Beibehaltung eines "Silos"-Denken bei der Datenverwaltung für zu Ineffektivität. Daten werden dupliziert, schlechte Datenqualität wird toleriert und das Vertrauen in Datenquellen für die Entscheidungsfindung sinkt.

Um Informationszeitalter bestehen zu können, müssen Daten wie ein anderes Gut behandelt werden, nur so kann der Ertrag aus den Datenbeständen maximiert werden. Dazu müssen alle Teile eines Unternehmens zu den Beständen und deren Umwandlung in nützliche Informationen beitragen.

Die meisten Unternehmen führen ein Bestandsverzeichnis für physische Vermögenswerte, das deren Standort und andere für die Verwaltung erforderliche Informationen enthält. Für Daten gibt es kaum vergleichbare Systeme.

Mit Zazuko Flux wird es Unternehmen ermöglicht, ein entsprechendes Bestandsregister für Daten zu haben. Es unterstützt sie bei der Verwaltung ihrer Daten als Gut, um den größten Nutzen daraus zu ziehen.

## What is your solution (product, service, process, etc.)?

Zazuko Flux is the next generation metadata solution. A data asset management software that is just as fast, flexible and scalable as the rest of the modern data stack. Flux helps companies turn data into information, which is ~~probably~~ going to become the most critical operation of every business in the near future, if it is not already.

Zazuko Flux treats business metadata in the same way as classic metadata, enabling unrivaled adaptability to customers and their needs. This is made possible by a user interface that can fully adapt to the business processes and an underlying data model built on a graph. This combination is unique in the market and gives us a significant advantage over design-based metadata systems.

Zazuko Flux is offered as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and provides a set of existing extractors and linkers, which retrieve data & metadata from existing systems and link them across silos. Additional systems can be connected and integrated via a marketplace.

### Original

Zazuko Flux ist die Metadatenlösung der nächsten Generation. Eine Software, die ebenso schnell, flexibel und skalierbar ist wie der Rest des modernen Datenstacks. Flux unterstützt Firmen in der Umwandlung von Daten in Informationen, was in Zukunft zum kritischsten Vorgang eines jeden Unternehmens werden wird.

Flux behandelt Geschäftsmetadaten gleichwertig wie klassische Metadaten und ermöglicht dadurch eine unerreichte Anpassungsfähigkeit an den Kunden und dessen Bedürfnisse. Ermöglicht wird dies durch eine vollständig an die Geschäftsprozesse anpassbare Benutzerschnittstelle und ein unterliegendes Datenmodell, welches auf einem Graphen aufbaut. Diese Kombination ist einzigartig im Markt und gibt uns gegenüber der Konkurrenz einen wesentlichen Vorsprung.

Zazuko Flux wird als Software-as-a-Service angeboten und bietet eine Auswahl an bestehenden Extraktoren und Linker, welche Daten & Metadaten aus bestehenden Systemen abgreift und Silo übergreifend in Beziehung setzt. Weitere Systeme können über einen Marktplatz angebunden und integriert werden.

## What are the other existing solutions and what are their limitations?

The market in which we operate is called "metadata management". The most commonly used term for products in this marked is "data catalog", which we also use as a door opener when we pitch to potential customers.

What is completely neglected in competing products is the ability to create business metadata. In a world of fast, agile software development, *business metadata is always the first casualty*. That means companies might have a very detailed *technical* view of metadata, but there is hardly any relation to the actual *business* of the company. A true inventory register for data *assets* is thus hardly feasible. RH: Does it make sense to cite the Gartner report here as well? (to show that we have done our research?!)

In addition, traditional design-based metadata systems are essentially static tools that rely on human intervention to maintain and document data. This means that the success of a metadata program depends on the people who implement it. Competing tools are very expensive and complex, and successful implementation can easily take 1-3 years.

### Original

Der Markt, in dem wir tätig sind, heißt „Metadaten-Management“. Der am häufigsten verwendete Begriff für Produkte in diesem Markt ist „Datenkatalog“, den wir auch als Türöffner verwenden, wenn wir uns an potenzielle Kunden wenden.

Was in konkurrierenden Produkten komplett vergessen geht ist die Möglichkeit zur Erstellung von Geschäftsmetadaten. In der Welt der schnellen, agilen Softwareentwicklung sind geschäftliche Metadaten immer das erste Opfer. Das heisst man hat zwar eine sehr detaillierte technische Sicht auf Metadaten, es besteht aber kaum ein Bezug zum eigentlichen Geschäft des Unternehmens. Ein echtes Bestandregister für Daten ist somit kaum umsetzbar.

Zudem sind herkömmliche Metadatensysteme im Grunde genommen statische Werkzeuge, die bei der Pflege und Dokumentation von Daten auf den menschlichen Einsatz angewiesen sind. Dies bedeutet, dass der Erfolg eines Metadatenprogramms von den Menschen abhängt, die es umsetzen. Die Werkzeuge sind sehr teuer und komplex, eine erfolgreiche Umsetzung kann ohne weiteres 1-3 Jahre beanspruchen.

## Do you have the necessary intellectual property rights to produce and market your solution in the targeted area (Freedom to Operate FTO)?

* https://fsfe.org/activities/swpat/swpat.en.html

Yes. According to The European Patent Convention ~~states that~~ software is not patentable. Hence wWe have full Freedom to Operate.

## Why is it the right time for your innovation (in particular regarding the market conditions and trends)?

Gartner's *Market Guide for Active Metadata Management* (July 2021) replaces what was before called "Magic Quadrant for Metadata Management Solutions". In this new guide, Garner argues that traditional metadata practices are insufficient:

> Organizations are demanding “active metadata” to assure augmented data management capabilities.

One of the recommendations in the report is to:

> Begin replacing or augmenting systems that share only their design-based metadata with those demonstrating active metadata capabilities. Identify tools and platforms that can export their own metadata and import “foreign” metadata relative to existing metadata, processing instructions and optimization strategies.

Our "Earlyvangelists" customer *Die Mobiliar* not only recognized this trend early on but also started investing into what is now *Zazuko Flux*. Zazuko Flux is the right platform and the right approach for organizations with ~~complicated~~ complex data and ~~complicated computer problems~~ complex IT infrastructure, and now is the time.

# Project Setup

## At what level of technology and business readiness is your planned innovation project

#### TRL 7

* All: Discuss all of these and see if we agree

TODO

#### BRL 7

TODO

## What level of technological and business readiness do you intend to achieve at the end of your Swiss Accelerator project?

### TRL 8

TODO

### BRL 8

TODO

## For which activities and associated deliverables do you mainly want to use the Swiss Accelerator grant?

*(Eligible costs are personnel and material costs that are actually incurred and necessary for the development of the innovation project towards competitive market-readiness in the targeted market (see “[What does the Swiss Accelerator fund?](https://www.innosuisse.ch/inno/en/home/promotion-of-national-projects/swiss-accelerator/short-application.html#-2019467398)” on the Innosuisse webpage for more information).)*

## Who are the main members of the project team? What relevant experience and expertise do they have?

* I think we have to focus due to 1000 char limit. Proposal: Adrian/Michael/Benjamin
* Mention Advisory Board briefly (it's a separate document)

TODO
Benjamin Hofstetter, Executive MBA, General Management
CAS Innovation Management, CAS Business Creation,
Dipl. Ing. FH in Computer science
Mobiliar Consulting and Development Enterprise Data Catalog

Michael Rauch: Software Engineering, Enterprise Software Architecture and Integration

## What skills and competencies, if any, are you currently missing in the team to implement the project? How do you plan to gain access to the corresponding resources?

* Please check if that makes sense. I want to show that we are realistic enough that we do need more resources but also show that we are in a very good spot, especially because it's not easy to find good candidates

While working on other customer projects we noticed the lack of sufficient project management skills in our team. We addressed this by collaborating with a full-time project management specialist in early 2022, she now supports & guides our team in PM tasks. RH: I would not lead with the need for a PM. This is "down in the weeds"... necessary, but not something to lead with in this proposal.

For Zazuko Flux development, additional user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) expertise could be useful. We have partner companies that support us in this regard on other projects~~, we can always approach them~~. These are not permanent positions so the costs are manageable.

As for expertise in RDF and Semantic Web, we have two potential candidates that could strengthen our team. Both have approached us and gone through the interview phase, we are currently evaluating if we can already afford the cost.

As we are a leader in our field, we are regularly contacted by potential employees. We have not hired a single employee through headhunters or job postings, but are either recommended or approached by the candidates themselves.

RH rewrite:
We believe that we have assembled an excellent core team to develop Zazuko Flux, as evidenced by our ongoing project with Die Mobiliar. However, taking Flux to the next level will require more resources, which we have already started to line up. We plan to hire these resources with funding from this proposal.

The most pressing need for Flux development is additional user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) expertise. We are currently planning to work with partner companies to fill this need and have already approached two companies to secure the needed resources.

As for expertise in RDF and Semantic Web, we have two potential candidates that will strengthen our team. Both have approached us and have gone through the interview phase. We are confident we can hire them as soon as funding becomes available.

In addition to technical expertise for Flux development, we have recognized the need for more support in project management. We addressed this by collaborating with a full-time project management specialist in early 2022. She now supports & guides our team in PM tasks and will also be available to manage the Zazuko Flux project.

MRA: Having QA Engineers would be good as well (Quality Assurance, Testing).

## What is the company's track-record, in particular regarding the project?

* Pipelining für BAR
* UI/UX Abstraktionen für Bund
* Erfahrung in grossen Organisationen wie BK, Mobi, Bayer, Allianz

Established in 2014, Zazuko is a trusted partner for large enterprises and the Swiss government to solve complex data management problems. As winner of two multi-million CHF tenders at the Swiss Government, Zazuko is the main technology partner for building a linked data & graph based government infrastructure in Switzerland.

Within these tenders, Zazuko developed an ETL pipeline framework to convert large amounts of data into a linked data based knowledge graph. This ETL framework is also the foundation of Zazuko Flux Extractor, which is used to fetch and interlink metadata from existing customer systems.

While consulting for customers like Die Mobiliar, SBB, Ericsson, Bayer, Allianz, Swiss Federal Chancellery and others, we gained a lot of experience regarding customer requirements for better understanding and managing data assets. The know-how of various prototypes and custom-solutions for these customer are consolidated in what is now Zazuko Flux.

## Do you need to collaborate with other stakeholders from research or industry to implement the project? If yes, why and with whom?

Our advisory board consists of experienced IT architects and managers. We plan to reinforce it with business model & development experts.

We already work with partners in the software industry in case we need additional resources or know-how outside of Zazuko. We focus on partners that are complementary to our offering, like experts in UI/UX, graph database vendors or RDB specialists.

Zazuko is considered as one of the though leaders in the domain of RDF based knowledge graphs and the semantic web technology stack. Our tools and libraries are widely used in industry and research. We are also involved in EU research projects within the Eurostars funding program. Before funding Zazuko, some of the co-founders were also active participants in EU FP7 and H2020 research projects.

While we do not see immediate needs for collaborations with stakeholders from research, we are confident that we know who to talk to, should any unforeseen problem(s) arise.

## What are the main risks of the project?

*(In case of a full application, you will submit a thorough risk analysis for which Innosuisse will provide you with a template.)*

* Nicht schnell genug am Markt
* Nicht genügend konfigurierbare, "fertige" Komponenten
* Zu starkes Abhängen von Consulting, sprich nicht einfach skalierbar
* Potentiell zu viele Konnektoren notwendig

To disrupt the metadata management market, we need to position Zazuko Flux as an *innovator* as quickly as possible. As mentioned in the *Gartner Market Guide for Active Metadata Management*, existing vendors in the market have to adopt their existing tools to become more "active". They have a large customer base and potentially big R&D budgets.

In the past 9 months we talked with many potential clients as part of customer discovery activities and presented the product offering of Zazuko Flux. The feedback is very positive & first business model hypotheses are defined. These need to be validated or pivoted, depending on further feedback and sales to early adopters.

A technical risk is the relatively small amount of metadata extractors we provide in a default instance of Zazuko Flux. Customers ask for a whole range of potential integrations and not all customers are willing to pay for custom extractors & integration. With funds from Swiss Accelerator we can improve this.

## Why can't you implement the project without a Swiss Accelerator grant?

* Nicht schnell genug am Markt
* Konkurrieren mit grossen, VC unterstützten Firmen
* Können alleine nur über Consulting Wachsen
* Maybe not the best text yet, proposals for improvements are very welcome.
* Maybe flipping the two paragraphs (reverse order)?

The first prototype of what is now Zazuko Flux was developed in late 2019 for *Die Mobiliar*. The continuous development over the past two years is fully financed by Zazuko & its customers via consulting. Talks with potential clients over the past 9 months show us that we solve a problem that almost all large companies have. Some of them consider it a large enough pain that they are early adopters for Zazuko Flux or consider to become one.

To disrupt the metadata management market, we need to move fast. Our plan is to scale Zazuko Flux as soon as possible, growing via consulting only works as a lifestyle business. For scaling, we need more resources to both enforce our team in business- and software-development. It is the right time for us for the Swiss Accelerator grant, with it we cannot just define but also reach the next important milestones.

# Value creation

*Please answer the questions below using no more than 1000 characters (incl. blanks) per question.*

## What is your targeted market?

* Wir "blenden" etwas mit Enterprise Architecture Tools, da wir diese Daten gleichberechtigt rein bringen.
* Eventuell zeigen, das wir ein Hybrid zwischen diesen beiden Märkten sind/bedienen

Until just recently (2021), Gartner called the market *Metadata Management Solutions*. In an update in summer 2021, Gartner released a new report that replaces the previous one and now calls the market *Active Metadata*. In their report *Market Guide for Active Metadata Management* they conclude that TODO

## What is the size of the targeted market?

* Gartner?
- [ ] TODO Benjamin: Please check/extend if you have better ideas

Depending on the source, the current forecast for the global metadata management tools market size is:

* "USD 6.3 billion in 2021 to 15 USD billion in 2026" (marketsandmarkets.com). [Source](https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/metadata-management-tools-market-120201191.html)
* "USD 3.42 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach USD 11.74 billion by 2026" (mordorintelligence.com). [Source](https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/enterprise-metadata-management-market)
* "USD 3.3 Billion in the year 2020, is projected to reach a revised size of USD 8.2 Billion by 2027" (researchandmarkets.com). [Source](https://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/4804968/enterprise-metadata-management-emm-global)

## For what and how do/will your customers pay?

Market research and interactions with potential customers like SBB show that the primary offer we aim at is Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). The customer pays for an instance of Zazuko Flux in the cloud for a yearly fee.

To get access to data and metadata of integrated systems, the customer puts a Zazuko Flux Extractor component in its intranet. This components can be secured according to the requirements of the organization and get access to the necessary systems. Only selected data & metadata is sent to the Zazuko Flux cloud instance.

The SaaS offer contains a hosted instance of Zazuko Flux, a set of default Zazuko Flux Extractor and a limited number of support hours. Additional systems/extractors can be integrated upon request, either on a fixed price or consulting hour basis.

## What is your Unique Selling Point (USP)?

* The paradigm shift: Going from passive to active metadata
* Events!
* DataOps-driven system.
* While this workflow sounds pretty simple, it is phenomenally difficult to implement seamlessly (which is why it probably doesn’t exist yet). It would require that the final end-user’s tool (where the user requests access to the data, like a [data catalog](https://atlan.com/what-is-a-data-catalog/)) interface with an access and entitlements policy engine, which would send a request to the data owner on a communication tool like Slack.
* We will never be able to achieve an embedded collaboration workflow like this without an active metadata platform orchestrating actions across the entire data stack.
* Luggen: partner ist gleichberechtigt wie die Daten selber, Datamodel
* Konfigurierbarkeit, Hypergraph
* Modulares System für Datenanbindung
* Alle Sprachen, alle Dienste
* "Alligned data"
* Plattform statt Applikation (gute Idee oder nicht?)
* What is completely neglected in competing products is the ability to create business metadata. In a world of fast, agile software development, *business metadata is always the first casualty*. That means companies might have a very detailed *technical* view of metadata, but there is hardly any relation to the actual *business* of the company. A true inventory register for data *assets* is thus hardly feasible.

Zazuko Flux treats business and process metadata the same way as any other metadata in the catalog. Traditional data catalogs provide metadata about the data itself, technical terms like database, table, last modified, etc. Business metadata is about things that are vital for generating money, customer, orders, employees incidents, etc. Without these, there is no business. Business metadata is managed in enterprise architecture tools, if at all.

In Flux, users interact with *everything* that matters to the business: Customers, orders, tables, employees, Kubernetes clusters, access control, databases, GDPR compliance, etc. Everything is a first-class citizen in the catalog and is linked to related objects. It provides a complete 360° view, from abstract business terms to specific entries for that term in a database.

This is made possible by a semantic software stack that stores the data in a graph. The user interface is configured and extended according to low-code principles.

## Who are your competitors?

* Data Catalog Firmen
* Gartner anschauen "Metadata"
* https://www.notion.so/atlanhq/The-Ultimate-Repository-of-Data-Discovery-Solutions-149b0ea2a2ed401d84f2b71681c5a369

In the report *Market Guide for Active Metadata Management*, Gartner provides a not exhaustive list of vendors that leverage both passive and active metadata management at different levels of maturity (table 1 in the report). The list contains around 40 vendors, among them well-known companies in the domain of data catalog software like Elation, Cambridge Semantics, Collibra, and Informatica.

Very large companies like Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, AWS, and SAP also provide data catalog and/or data governance tooling, some of them in their cloud offerings.

Our customers and potential customers we talked to actively evaluated some of these tools and decided that they do not solve the problem they have. To the best of our knowledge, none of these tools provides a way to integrate business metadata as a first-class citizen. Their focus is on very technical metadata.

## What are the main entry barriers that prevent your competitors from easily entering the market?

* Data-centric mindset switch
* Wenig Personal mit viel Erfahrung im KG-Bereich
* Quite technical like this, ok or not?

Our team lives and believes in the data-centric manifesto: *Data is the center of the universe; applications are ephemeral*. Zazuko Flux is built on the key principles of this manifesto. We do this by using a state-of-the-art semantic software stack that stores the data in a graph. Over the past 8 years, we built a professional, scalable software stack for our customers to solve complex problems with less effort. We work using low-code/no-code principles: repetitive tasks are abstracted into modules and can be plugged together using minimal code, domain specific languages, or web-based user interfaces. Combined, this is part of the "secret sauce" that makes it possible to build a powerful platform like Zazuko Flux that integrates any type of data source or business concept, and stay ahead of the competition.

We consider ourselves leaders in these principles, while there is competition using graphs, we yet have to see another team or software that is pushing these principles that far.

## Will your innovation have an impact on the sustainable development of society, the economy or the environment? What is your contribution?

* Sustainable dürfte nur indirekt möglich sein.
* Bessere, neue Einsichten in Daten. Damit Ersparnisse

As a software company, we can only make a limited direct contribution to sustainable development. Zazuko Flux supports companies in data management, thereby new knowledge can be gained that can indirectly contribute to sustainable development by fostering innovation.

## Where do you see your company in 5 years and what do you ultimately want to achieve with this Swiss Accelerator project from a business perspective?

* Completely shift to a product-oriented company
* Consulting only where necessary.

In 5 years, Zazuko will be an internationally known and established provider of information management systems for data- and business assets. Through continuous innovation, Zazuko Flux is the most innovative software on the market and is becoming the de facto standard for large companies. A professional team is constantly developing the software and feels the pulse of the customers. In addition to large customers, more and more small and medium-sized companies are using Zazuko Flux, and the barriers to entry are continually falling.

Swiss Accelerator is literally the accelerator in this process. It allows us to ignite the next stage and take a promising software at warp speed to the next dimension in the customer & business development process. Customers who are hesitating now will benefit from the new maturity of Zazuko Flux and will be able to celebrate first successes stories quickly. With a lot newly won confidence, Zazuko can collect additional funds and ignite the next steps.

### Original

In 5 Jahren wird Zazuko ein international bekannter und etablierter Anbieter von Informationsmanagement Systemen für Daten- und Geschäftsgüter sein. Durch kontinuierliche Innovation ist Zazuko Flux die innovativste Software am Markt und etabliert sich bei sehr grossen Unternehmen als De-facto-Standard. Ein professionelles Team entwickelt die Software stetig weiter und fühlt bei den Kunden den Puls. Nebst Grosskunden verwenden immer mehr kleinere und mittlere Unternehmen Zazuko Flux, die Einstiegshürden sinken kontinuierlich.

Swiss Accelerator ist wortwörtlich der Beschleuniger in diesem Prozess. Er ermöglicht uns die nächste Stufe zu zünden und eine vielversprechende Software mit Warp-speed in die nächste Dimension der Geschäftstätigkeit zu bringen. Kunden, die jetzt noch zögern, werden von dem neuen Reifegrad von Zazuko Flux profitieren und schnell erste Erfolge damit feiern können. Zazuko kann damit mit viel Selbstvertrauen zusätzliches Kapital einsammeln gehen, um nochmals eine weitere Raketenstufe zu zünden.

## What value will the innovation create for the Swiss economy and/or society?

* Datenschutz erwähnen?

The information age requires the development of information solutions, organizations must begin managing data and the information derived from it as real assets.

Zazuko Flux helps companies turn data into information by integrating business and process metadata like any other metadata and linking them across silos. This creates information that contains economic characteristics and facilitates actionable insights. This enables companies to generate more business and revenue, support the Swiss and global economy, and generate more tax revenue for society.

Putting data in the context of the business is also a precondition for effective data protection. With the revision of the Bundesgesetz über den Datenschutz (DSG), the responsibility to comply with data protection law lies with the company's management and cannot be delegated. Our early adopter customers are already using Zazuko Flux to technologically support this issue.

RH: Does it make sense to mention/connect our project with some of the OpenData Swiss efforts to say something like "The government has recognized the trend to open data and the value of data, so now it is time for swiss companies to do the same?!" It may be a bit far fetched... or not.