I was recently invited to attend the IBM Business Analytics Launch as part of the IBM Data and AI
Forum in Germany. During the event, I was lucky enough to listen to session led by Casten Bange,
the CEO and founder of BARC. In a short ten-minute session, he explored some of the trends in
Data, BI and Analytics topics in regards to their importance to customers. I’m sure that we all agree
that data is important to our enterprises. Having the right data available at the right time in order to
make data-driven decisions promptly can provide competitive advantage. We are all on a Data and
AI journey. Research into which topics organizations are focusing on can help us assess where we are
on that journey and what our next steps should be. Therefore, I would like to take the time to share
some of BARC’s insights with you.
You may or may not be surprised to learn that may of the topics that we hear about in the media are
not actually of key importance to Business Intelligence practitioners. Topics such as “IoT Data &
Analytics” and “Mobile BI” are actually ranked at the lower end of the scale – it is the organizational
aspects such as providing a “data-driven culture”, “data quality management”, and “data
governance” that are of the greatest importance to data analytics professionals.
Data quality management is the foundation of data analytics – it is necessary in order to make data
analytics work! Consequently BARC have found that organizations have rated this the most
important Data and AI topic for 5 years in a row.
The last 5 years has seen a rise in the importance of a data driven culture. As more enterprises have
invested in the technology to provide access to trusted data across their organization, more
importance has been placed on creating the culture that empowers everyone to drive insight from
data and make better decisions.
Another topic that has consistently featured highly is data governance. Here it is not only ensuring
that the only the right people have access to data, but also balancing the demand for self-service
access with the risk of siloes.
Enabling businesses to leverage their data assets through “data discovery” and “self-service BI and
analytics” also make into the top 5 important topics.
Top 10 Topics
- Master data/data quality management
- Data-driven culture
- Data governance
- Data discovery
- Self-serivce BI and analytics
- Data warehouse modernization
- Agile BI development
- Alerting
- Analytics on real-time data
- Data preparation by business users
It should be noted that although it didn’t make the top 10 “Cloud for Data and Analytics” is on the
rise, as more organizations look to exploit cloud technologies and benefits such as quicker/easier
deployment and accelerated time to value.
Wherever you are in your Data and AI journey, which ever topic you feel is of most importance to
your organization, with over 30 years of experience, DataSkill is ready to help you take the next step.
Contact us to find out how DataSkill and IBM can help provide you with the right Data and Analytics
solution or join our IBM Analytics 101 Webinar to find out more about IBM’s solutions
https://www.DataSkill.com/Analytics101