How Bedrock Leveraged OvalEdge for Digital Transformation and Scalable Data Governance

CLIENT’S PROFILE

Bedrock is a prominent real estate firm focused on city-building strategies. Since its inception in 2011, the company has invested over $7.5 billion in developing more than 140 properties across Detroit and Cleveland. Their portfolio spans over 21 million square feet and includes office, retail, residential, industrial, hospitality, and parking.

Bedrock is well-known for its innovative approaches to urban development, such as the adaptive reuse of historic buildings, including renovating the Book Tower in Detroit and The May in Cleveland. The company's projects reflect a blend of creativity, historic preservation, and modern luxury, contributing significantly to the revitalization of urban spaces

CONTEXT

Bedrock looks to optimize and embrace digital transformation. The company is always upgrading its tech infrastructure, but with a small team overseeing data governance, they require support to transition to more of a structured system. Bedrock identified the need for consistent data definitions across teams, making communication and data usage clear. Additionally, the company strived to ensure data is consistent and accurate to create effective reporting and analysis. A near-term goal for Bedrock is to make data-driven decisions and achieve advanced goals like AI.

Bedrock also needed comprehensive reports and consistent data aggregation methods, a solution required for multiple teams creating different versions of reports on the same data. There is a need to consolidate these reports into a single source of truth, ensuring consistency in data and decision-making across the organization.

In this environment, Bedrock recognized the need for a comprehensive data governance solution that will standardize definitions, improve data quality, and streamline reporting—all while supporting their lean team and rapid growth.

WHY OVALEDGE

Bedrock chose OvalEdge for several key reasons:

• Integrated Solution: Bedrock needs a full-service, integrated data governance platform that will handle all aspects of governance, including business glossary, data catalog, data lineage, and data quality, all in one tool. Most other vendors require multiple tools, complicating the environment and increasing costs.
  
  

• Ease of Adoption for Lean Teams: With a small team managing enterprise data governance, Bedrock requires a solution that is easy to adopt and train on. OvalEdge’s holistic approach allows the team to quickly implement governance practices without the complexity of navigating several disparate systems.
  
  

• Scalability: OvalEdge’s ability to scale with Bedrock's digital transformation is a key factor. As Bedrock rapidly integrates new tools into their business, OvalEdge’s cataloging capabilities and governance framework allows them to streamline data discovery and governance as they grow.
  
  

• Business Glossary Integration: OvalEdge’s business glossary stands out because it seamlessly integrates with the data catalog, allowing Bedrock to link business terms to columns, tables, and reports while building data quality rules and visualizing data lineage—all in one interface. This integration is particularly valuable for their lean team, eliminating the need for multiple tools.
  
  

• Data Lineage: OvalEdge’s auto lineage feature helps Bedrock map data flows and identify issues in their data aggregation processes, allowing them to fix problems at the source and improve data quality downstream. This feature saves the team significant time and effort compared to manually mapping lineage, providing better data transparency and efficiency.

“OvalEdge stood out because it provides a full governance platform, including a business glossary, data catalog, data lineage, and data quality—all integrated. For a lean team like ours, this makes training and adoption much easier. Instead of navigating multiple tools, we can focus on one integrated solution.” said Sergei Vandalov, Senior Manager, Data Governance & Analytics at Bedrock.

SOLUTION

Here’s how OvalEdge’s key features helps Bedrock:

• Business Glossary: OvalEdge’s business glossary helps standardize and define key terms like “property,” which have been used inconsistently across teams. By unifying definitions, Bedrock ensures that everyone in the organization has a consistent understanding of critical business terms. This is especially important as Bedrock scales and onboards new teams and tools.

“Most vendors offer a business glossary feature, but where OvalEdge shines is in the integration. For example, stitching business glossary terms to columns, tables, and reports in the data catalog, building data quality rules on top, and visualizing lineage—all in one interface. For a lean team like ours, having everything in one place is incredibly powerful. We don't need multiple tools or windows open; it's all seamlessly integrated.” said Sergei Vandalov, Senior Manager, Data Governance & Analytics at Bedrock.

• Data Catalog: The integration of the data catalog allows Bedrock to classify and manage data efficiently, enabling easy discovery for users. This tool streamlines data access, which is crucial in reducing siloed reports and ensuring all teams have access to the same data for accurate reporting and analysis.
  
  

• Data Lineage: OvalEdge’s data lineage feature is invaluable. It enables Bedrock to trace data flow across systems, improving transparency and understanding of how data is aggregated. This feature also helps Bedrock identify the source of data quality issues, allowing them to resolve problems before they impact business outcomes. The auto-lineage feature saves significant time, providing a comprehensive view of data flows and integrations that were previously handled manually.

“I appreciate the ability to see everything—code, source-target mapping, and both graphical and tabular views. The auto lineage feature is particularly valuable to me. Previously, we had to manually map data lineage, which was time-consuming. With OvalEdge, auto lineage saves us months of work and helps us train the team, giving them a more holistic understanding of data flows and integrations. This is especially important in data governance and data quality. Without data lineage, you can’t manage data quality effectively.” said Sergei Vandalov, Senior Manager, Data Governance & Analytics at Bedrock.

• Data Quality: OvalEdge’s tools for defining and enforcing data quality rules ensure that data used in reporting and analysis is accurate and relevant. By implementing specific data quality rules—such as preventing incorrect country selections for regions where they didn’t operate—Bedrock minimizes human error and maintains clean, reliable data across the organization. This is critical for improving decision-making and supporting advanced initiatives like AI.
  
  

OUTCOMES

Implementing OvalEdge helps transform Bedrock’s approach to data governance. The platform simplifies governance tasks, making it easier for Bedrock’s lean team to manage and scale operations. By standardizing definitions and consolidating data into a single source of truth, the team has access to more accurate data across the entire company. The enhanced visibility provided by data lineage improves decision-making, while enforcing data quality rules ensure that only reliable data is used for reporting.

Moreover, OvalEdge’s ability to integrate with Bedrock’s growing tech stack allows the company to scale its data governance efforts seamlessly, accommodating new data sources without disrupting existing processes. Finally, by consolidating multiple siloed reports into one unified system, OvalEdge facilitates better collaboration and alignment across teams, ensuring that all stakeholders are beginning to work from the same set of data, ultimately driving business success.

"OvalEdge stands out for its holistic approach, providing everything from business glossary to data lineage, all seamlessly integrated. The auto-lineage feature saves us months of work, enabling us to quickly understand data flows and address issues at the source. OvalEdge allows us to standardize and govern our data efficiently, even with a small team, supporting our growth while reducing errors and improving data quality." said Sergei Vandalov, Senior Manager, Data Governance & Analytics at Bedrock.