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Top BI & Data Trends 2021
To prepare for what’s next, learn how to make the digital switch.
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Discover the top 10 trends emerging in today's new normal.
2021 Trends Webinar
Time to future-proof your business.
Dive into the top 10 trends in this on-demand webinar with bonus Q&A session.
How can your business respond to a more disruptive world? With flexibility, agility and awareness. That requires using data and analytics to uncover more of the unseen – and acting early enough to make an impact. Discover the top 10 data trends emerging in the new normal, and find out how to use them to your advantage.
SaaS is everyone’s new best friend.
While bigger projects have been put on hold in the short term, the immediate switch to SaaS will be a trigger for the migration of databases and applications. Technologies that can access, move and harmonize data from multiple places will follow.
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Self-service has evolved to self-sufficiency.
When there are no instruction manuals and no one there to hold a user’s hand, a fast, intuitive ramp-up is critical for adoption. In analytics, empowering users to access data more intuitively will enable the move from data self-service to data self-sufficiency.
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Shared data, visualizations and storytelling are consumed by the masses.
There has been an up-leveling in the conversation about data, and it’s more important than ever to deliver the last mile in data storytelling. This development is moving millions toward data literacy. But data is too quickly becoming politicized; we need etiquette for intellectual integrity.
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Up-to-date and business-ready data are more important than ever.
Since the pandemic arrived, we’ve seen a surge in the need for real-time and accurate data. Alerts, data refreshes and forecasts will need to occur more often, with the most up-to-date variables. And as the velocity of data increases, the speed of business must follow.
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Advanced analytics need to look different.
Predictive models typically don’t work well when a critical input datapoint has never occurred in the past. Algorithms need good backward-looking data – sometimes lots of it – to build a comprehensive data model of the future. And we need to up-level analytic approaches to include a focus in on outliers.
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Learn more about our 2021 BI and Data Trends.
It’s essential to capture and synthesize “alternative” data.
It’s becoming increasingly important to use data from external sources, including from outside industries. From that, you can get derivative data, which comes from combinations, associations and syntheses with data from systems of record. This trend isn’t new but is gaining traction, thanks to cheaper processing and more mature AI.
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Business process reengineering takes center stage.
Today, we can not only model business processes but also mine, automate and optimize them via technologies like robotic process automation, alerting and embedded analytics. As leaders look to reengineer the way things get done, the efficiency metric will only grow in importance and priority.
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The compass for competition, surveillance and security has been recalibrated.
Governments are intruding further into citizens’ privacy, which we have at least temporarily accepted. Additionally, we’re seeing collaboration between normally fierce competitors. One potential upside of the pandemic: Large-scale co-opetition may lead to new innovation. But how and where will data be used and stored?
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Collaboration has to coalesce earlier in the chain.
The convergence of data management and analytics has created opportunities for integration points between the components of the data pipeline, combining synthesis with analysis and enabling active metadata, business logic and catalogs to act as connective tissue. This will push collaboration, innovation and discussions to the data itself.
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The Great Digital Switch may force a generational shift in analytics.
Drastically changed circumstances have disrupted expectations, which may trigger a generational shift in BI. The expectations for next-generation technology can be summed up in a single phrase: the movement from passive to active. In an uncertain world, companies need to become as pre-active and prepared as they can.
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Here to help you on the path to success
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BI & Data Trends 2021: The Great Digital Switch
Interested in a deeper look at this year’s trends? Download the companion eBook to get broader content, read fuller explanations and see analyst predictions. -
BI & Data Trends 2021: The Great Digital Switch
Listen in as we reveal the top BI and data trends, including the new surge in SaaS and the move from self-service to self-sufficiency. And find out how you can prepare for the next big disruption. -
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