While companies are now well aware of the capital of their data, it is still necessary to know how to manage and exploit them properly. It is important to be able to rely on high quality data and to have the important data on hand. The analytics trends emerging from BARC’s latest BI Trend Monitor clearly illustrate these issues.
Master data management and data governance
The question of the management of master data and the quality of data is thus essential, like last year, at the top of the trend of this study based on a survey conducted at the global scale with 2 700 consultants, suppliers and users. The theme of data governance is on its side in fourth place. Data quality and data management masters are important for companies because decision-making processes and operational actions depend on reliable data. “The definition of roles and responsibilities, quality assurance processes, and ongoing monitoring of the quality of company data are critical to achieving high and sustainable data quality,” said the study’s authors. As for data governance, it is needed as a central mechanism to orchestrate how the business strategy is translated into data and analysis. “Putting data governance in place is a long-term effort,” warns BARC.
Data discovery and self-service BI
BARC’s BI Trend Monitor also illustrates the importance of data discovery and self-service BI (trends ranked second and third, respectively). Visual analysis can now be driven by business users, if they are equipped with the right tools to connect various sources, clean and enrich the data to prepare them as relevant sets. The interest in these technologies giving business users the ability to easily explore data is further enhanced by the integration of machine learning capabilities. The latter guide trades analysts in all stages, from preparation to presentation through analysis processes.
Agile BI and machine learning
Self-service BI is to be considered as a complement to the BI solutions developed by IT. Who is always asked to opt for a development approach “Agile BI”. This trend is also one of the most advanced in BARC’s ranking and consists in developing solutions in close collaboration with the business and using rapid prototyping. The advanced analysis doped with machine learning finally stands out as the trend that has made the most marked improvement compared to the study last year. The firm emphasizes that in this area, many companies – especially the larger ones – have moved from experimentation to more practical and everyday use cases.
