Last week, our team organised a meeting to bring together representatives of data departments of large companies and experts in the field.

We wanted to share knowledge, success stories, and to learn about the future of data in organisations.

The main topics on the agenda were the barriers and difficulties of data-driven adoption in organisations, data monetisation and management strategies in data-driven organisations. Here are the main takeaways from the meeting:

  1. We learned that the most important thing when dealing with data is not how to collect it and translate it into insights but how to leverage it. A data-first approach to management should always be about improving business outcomes.

  2. One of the significant challenges that come with the use of Big Data is security and privacy. According to Gartner, last year, more than 50% of companies were guilty of data breach. If companies fail to comply with the regulations of the industry, many technologies based on data analytics will fail.

  3. The role of the Data Officer and Data Scientist will become increasingly important. The wider the adoption of data-driven technologies, the more important the role of the Data Scientist in the organisation. The gap between the demand for Data Scientists and the actual number of specialists will widen. In the future, more developers will work with Big Data and advanced analytics. Even though at the moment there are over 6 million developers worldwide, the demand for developers that can build applications for big data will increase.

  4. In 2019, we will see a considerable increase in big data analytics. Companies will buy algorithms instead of software. When buying an algorithm, a company can add its own data to it. It is easier to customise than to buy software according to the company’s needs.

  5. Prescriptive analytics will become a part of business intelligence software. According to IDC, half of the business intelligence software will include predictive analytics that will helps businesses make the right decisions at the right time. 

  6. Big Data improves productivity. The investments that will generate the highest return on investment are the ones in Big Data. 

The session ended with a discussion about the challenges that each of the participants encountered when working with Big Data.