We talked with Mark Bregman,
senior vice president and CTO at NetApp to discuss the differences between Data
Thrivers and Data Survivors, and how the gap between these two will widen in
2018.
VMblog: Can you explain the differences between Data
Thrivers and Data Survivors?
Mark Bregman: Data Thrivers are those
organizations building their business around data and then deciding what
business to be in. Thrivers are those visionaries who are aggressively
disruptive in their use of digital technologies. On the flip side, Data Survivors
are in a business, typically an existing legacy business, and they're just now
trying to survive this data onslaught and figure out how to use it effectively.
While Survivors know a digital transformation business strategy is necessary,
their execution of it is still on a project basis.
VMblog: Why will this gap continue to expand in
2018?
Bregman: We've shifted
fundamentally to a data driven world and if organizations don't act, they will
move from survival mode to no longer existing as a business. According to a
recent
IDC survey, only 11 percent of companies surveyed fit the profile of a Data
Thriver, which puts traditional organizations at risk of losing revenue to more
data-driven ones.
In the near future, we'll
also see data become self-aware, and this is to the favor of Data Thrivers. The
data will be self-describing and the metadata will make it possible for the
data to transport, categorize, analyze and support itself. For organizations
that run their business based on data, self-aware data will supercharge their
existing strategy and make the whole business process easier.
Finally, the explosion of data and the desire to do more with it in real time
are driving more use cases for analytics and machine learning. Thrivers are
more often at the cutting edge of these new styles because they're already
pushing the envelope, while Survivors are just trying to stay afloat in the Big
Data sea.
VMblog: What are the best practices for
organizations looking to pivot their data strategy and move from a Data
Survivor to Data Thriver in 2018?
Bregman: Both Thrivers and
Survivors are dealing with the same explosion of data and demands of digital
transformation. But, I think one of the main challenges is that Data Survivors
are in survival mode. There's a shift that needs to take place in thinking and
the first part of this is really the desire to transform the organization. For
these organizations, it's critical to get a clear understanding of the role
data plays in their current business.
Many businesses don't understand this
well, and it's not a matter of just knowing you have an accounting system, an
inventory management system and an HR system. After making this shift in
thinking, the first step is to really think at a higher level about how your
data fits in your business. Once there is an understanding of the type of data
you have, the value of that data and how it's used, you can start to imagine
new sources of data that can contribute to new business insights. Ultimately, moving
from Survivor to Thriver requires a leap of faith. Recognizing the problem is the
starting point.
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