Our Data Insights & Analytics series ended the year with the Trends in Data Analytics – From Database to Analyst webinar on December 7. The education session focused on what’s trending in information management – the opportunities and potential obstacles for 2018 related to people, technology, data and processes.
Webinar presenters Kelle O’Neal and John Ladley led webinar participants through what’s trending in these four areas and how to ride the trends:
- What’s Trending – People
- Culture will remain the number one obstacle to successful analytics, governance, Big Data and data monetization.
- Training as part of culture — and specifically training in “being data-driven” — will be a core requirement for organizational leadership.
- Roles/titles of the CDO (be that Digital, Data or both) and the Chief Analytics Officer, will need to be clarified.
- A “people plan” and a good RACI/RASCI chart will be critical requirements as roles and functions evolve.
- How to Ride the People Trends
- Plan on revisiting your organizational charts — maybe a few times.
- Prepare the organization for evolving roles and new job descriptions.
- Work to improve IT/Business collaboration.
- Of course, prepare a good plan for sustaining your Big Data program and related data governance.
- What’s Trending – Technology
- Database technology will require an open mind to leverage innovations such as graph technology.
- Blockchain will continue to expand, so it needs to be explored and evaluated as a possible architectural component and profit-driver.
- Predictive analytics evolution as a mainstream enterprise capability will continue to grow significantly.
- The Internet of Things (IoT) and lowering latencies will require more throughput and need for speed.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning will require further understanding of more mainstream considerations.
- Data lake management tools will evolve, and you may need to consider switching your current approach.
- Cognitive learning will enter the vocabulary of enterprise architects.
- Technologies will swing back to be more general and less purpose-built overall.
- How to Ride the Technology Trends
- Look into and experiment with graph database technology. This will be a vital element of metadata tools.
- Prepare for Edge Computing if you are doing IoT.
- Get smarter about Blockchain, even if there may not be an obvious use for it in your organization.
- Track, monitor and learn about data lake and other Big Data technology.
- Get serious about how low your latency requirements are and be honest. You may need to make a shift in your current technology strategy.
- Make sure you understand what AI and Machine Learning really mean — and, like latencies, make sure you clearly define what is needed.
- What’s Trending – Data
- Data sources will grow with demand in the market as more organizations monetize their data.
- Regulations will expand (e.g. the General Data Protection Regulation, ePrivacy) and require a more rigorous understanding of your data landscape.
- Smart data and actionable data will become the new focus as organizations do less with Big Data for data’s sake.
- The IoT will have a tremendous impact on Big Data sources and volumes.
- How to Ride the Data Trends
- If monetizing data as a revenue source, implement “product management” practices.
- In considering new data sources, make sure you have clear policies and governance over external data procurement and storage. Review all cloud storage agreements.
- The regulatory activity will make the need for a documented data landscape inevitable. If you don’t know what data you have or where it lives, get started.
- Start to think of “smart data.” Consider your overall data strategy and use the entire data portfolio to be smart.
- What’s Trending – Process
- Digital transformation and “being data-driven” will become less of an option.
- Innovation is shifting to efficiency and sustainability, amid a highly dynamic product landscape.
- Data monetization will require new business processes to manage data products, data-centric internal programs and data supply chains.
- Data governance is becoming even more of a requirement at leading organizations.
- How to Ride the Process Trends
- Define and build “being data-driven” into planning processes such as annual planning, budgeting, resourcing, etc.
- Be flexible with your product procurement to leverage the dynamic market.
- Put your process-design hat on.
- Recognize the need to adapt data governance to be more agile/targeted to support ever-changing business and industry requirements.
Data Analytics Trends Webinar Recap
We encourage you to listen to the full one-hour presentation of Trends in Data Analytics, which you can find in DATAVERSITY’s webinar archive. (View or download our presentation material here.)
Up Next: Create an Analytics-Driven Culture
Our Data Insights & Analytics webinar series heads into its second year next month with a look at what it takes to develop and sustain an analytics-driven culture. We hope you make plans to join Kelle and John for the Keys to Creating an Analytics-Driven Culture webinar on Thursday, January 4.
Stay in the loop regarding future Data Insights & Analytics webinars and other news from FSFP!
