Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2021. Read them in this 13th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
The Future of Data Management, AI and Remote Work
By Michal Klaus, CEO of Ataccama
COVID-19 has reshaped virtually every industry, but as the pandemic continues on, 2021 is setting up to be yet another challenging year as entire industries continue to navigate uncertainty.
There is, however, one certainty as we approach the new year: that businesses will continue to accelerate digital transformation efforts to stay ahead of the curve. The next 12 months will be critical for the future of an organization’s data and digital efforts.
Growing data governance complexities will force a new approach to data management
The pandemic has accelerated the shift to the cloud for many data-driven organizations, but as the race to the cloud intensifies, so does the complexity of data governance. While cloud platforms all have measures to protect data, data governance has still become increasingly complicated for global companies, which must learn to scale their efforts across regions and align them with the unique and granular guidelines of each geopolitical area. Organizations continue to tackle this problem in traditional ways, often manually, but this approach has become impossible to sustain and scale.
We will begin to see data governance efforts undergo a cultural shift. Organizations will increasingly look for ways to glue data governance policies directly to the data itself, providing a layer within data management platforms, through solutions like AI, that will allow people to access the data with governance already built-in. The result will offer the best of both worlds and the ability to scale to meet today’s growing challenges.
Data management will move from self-service to self-driving
Organizations have increasingly looked to AI and automation to help scale their efforts, but often these AI systems are very narrow point applications, supporting only limited efforts. In fact, much of what organizations have implemented when it comes to AI lacks the holistic nature of what is required, leveraging immature algorithms to handle complex, modern problems.
In 2021, organizations will begin to look at this process in a more comprehensive way, moving from siloed AI applications to ones that prioritize the entire process of obtaining clean, high-quality, and governed data at scale. The shift will mark a larger industry move from self-service data management platforms, which have grown in popularity in recent years but still require the user to do much of the manual work, to a self-driving solution, in which the user expresses what is required of the platform and it does the rest.
This shift will drive the democratization of data within organizations, removing the technical barriers that previously existed, while opening up access for teams in a more streamlined and governed way.
Remote work technologies will closer imitate in-person environments
Organizations have been able to react quickly to this period of remote work thanks to the adoption of numerous collaboration and meeting solutions that keep people connected. As remote work extends into the long term, however, we’re recognizing gaps that need addressing. There is still quite a lot of value in discussing something face-to-face, being able to understand the context of something in-person, or even casual conversations or brainstorms that can spontaneously happen in an office setting.
With a return to the office still far away for many organizations, expect new innovative solutions to enter the market aimed at further enhancing our ability to collaborate in more casual ways that elicit the epiphanies and discoveries the office so often creates. No matter the industry or company, 2021 will bring new digital solutions to further close the gap in bringing this sense of informality from the office to the home and will further enhance the productivity and creativity of businesses.
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About the Author
As Chief Executive Officer of Ataccama, Michal Klaus has supported the growth of the company from its early stages to present success with 350+ clients in the data management and data governance spaces. Michal has been a pillar to the Ataccama team in the development of its flagship product, Ataccama ONE. He has deep experience in the computer software industry, and strengths in enterprise architecture, agile methodologies, ETL, databases, and IT strategy.
