Johannesburg, 29 Nov 2022
The past few years have arguably seen data and analytics become accepted as a core factor for business success in the modern age. Faced with ongoing disruption, a global pandemic, intense supply chain pressures and a global economy in turmoil, business leaders today need accurate data insights more than ever before.
In fact, the global big data analytics market is set to grow from $206.95 billion in 2020 to nearly $550 billion by 2028.
The years ahead are likely to be no less unpredictable than the past few years have been. Supply chain pressures will remain and the prospect of a recession in several leading economies could add further complication to businesses desperate to recover from years of challenging trading conditions.
Add to that the wildcard impact of a rapidly changing climate, and businesses are in for a bumpy few years. However, those that can leverage the latest technologies and harness the power of data and analytics will be better positioned to take advantage of the power of data-driven decision-making capabilities that can reduce waste, eliminate uncertainty and power the achievement of broader organisational goals.
Data-driven organisations to have better time despite constraints
The year ahead is likely to be no less disruptive than the past few years have been. Organisations that have invested in building data-driven decision-making capabilities will see their investments bear fruit as recessionary forces and continued instability disrupt business as usual.
In 2023, business leaders will embrace data as the key to understanding customers, developing better products and services and streamlining internal operations to drive down costs and increase efficiency.
Successful organisations will increasingly automate data-driven decision intelligence to reduce the huge cost of wasted or missed opportunities. As part of a broader business strategy, organisations will focus more on creating a data fabric to reduce wasted opportunities that stem from poor or untimely decisions, often by unlocking value from siloed data.
Part of this will involve getting data to frontline, shop floor and non-technical staff. It will extend to functions such as finance and marketing to bring accurate decision-making based on real-time data to the organisation's frontline workers.
Data trends to watch in 2023
For organisations seeking to build or enhance their data-driven decision-making capabilities, some key developments may influence their efforts in the year ahead.
Cloud and data as a service will enable companies to access data sources collected and curated by third parties via cloud services on a pay-as-you-use or subscription-based billing model. This reduces the need for companies to build their own expensive, proprietary data collection and storage systems, driving down costs and increase speed-to-market for new data tools.
Data governance and regulation takes centre stage again as more governments introduce laws designed to regulate the use of personal and other data. Following in the steps of Europe's GDPR, Canada's PIPEDA and China's PIPL, other countries are set to introduce their own legislation to regulate and protect personal data. Gartner estimates nearly two-thirds of the world's population will be covered by GDPR-like regulations in 2023.
Cloud-based self-service data analytics will be the next big thing for data analytics, with human resources and finance set to lead the pack. Expect heavy investment in cloud-based technology solutions that give users direct access to the information they need. Companies that leverage self-service analytics powered by the cloud can boost their competitive advantage and increase their efficiency by putting data into the hands and heads of users that can benefit most.
Expect ongoing progress with data democratisation, which aims to empower all members of an organisation – regardless of their technical expertise – to interact comfortably with the data and discuss it confidently. This leads to improved decision-making and boosts customer experiences. Data democratisation allows non-technical users to gather and analyse data without the assistance of data stewards, system admins or IT staff.
Finally, as the pace of business continues to increase and data becomes more complex, organisations are likely to increasingly rely on data fabric architecture. Data fabric is a set of architectures and services that provide consistent functionality across various endpoints that span multiple cloud environments and deliver an end-to-end solution. It creates a common data management practice that can scale across a wide range of on-premises, cloud and edge services and reduce the design, deployment and operational data management tasks by up to 70%. Expect overstretched data teams to adopt data fabric to simplify data management and boost operational efficiency.
Key takeaways
The unpredictability of the modern operating environment creates immense challenges for businesses seeking to grow their revenue, build new capabilities and prepare for an uncertain future. However, powerful data and analytics capabilities can bring welcome relief to business leaders tasked with guiding their organisations towards their goals.
Companies that invest in building true data-driven decision-making capabilities are better placed to make the correct decisions that can advance their business objectives. Having accurate data insights can also reduce risk, reveal opportunities for new products and services and ensure the business is meeting customer expectations.
Understanding the trends that shape the data and analytics landscape can help business and technology leaders make better decisions over their investment into building true data-driven decision-making capabilities.
Share