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Enterprise data for all? Predictions for data accessibility in 2023
By Mike Albritton, senior vice president of Cloud, CData
Data is omnipresent in the modern enterprise. It powers everything from large-scale research to consumer product recommendations, mission-critical business decisions to innovations across industries. In fact, the average company uses five internal data sources to support its decision-making, and one out of five organizations uses more than 20 sources.
Although enterprise data is now indispensable, a fundamental challenge has emerged as data sources rapidly expand: Data is difficult to access across organizations – and its slowing the entire enterprise down.
With data spread across a myriad of cloud applications, data repositories, and digital platforms, data silos are creating friction and frustration for non-technical employees. But we’re starting to see that change.
Businesses today are looking to make data usable by everyone across the organization while keeping their data ecosystem secure and governed. Next year will see more organizations working to strike the right balance – and finding it.
5 trends for enterprise data
Businesses are turning to data to better inform decisions, optimize processes, and drive business goals. Here are five trends related to enterprise data and how they’ll impact organizations in 2023:
1. Prioritization of curated data
With so much data collected, stored, and maintained in digital ecosystems, organizations are struggling to sift through massive databases to quickly and easily locate relevant, useful information. For example, a single record in Salesforce could contain hundreds of fields – requiring hours of manual searching that takes time away from more important work.
In response, data cataloging, tagging, lineage, and other data management measures are more vital than ever, with an increasing number of digital solutions on the market designed to make this process more efficient and user-friendly. In 2023, companies will continue to prioritize data management and rely on tools that enable their data teams to more effectively organize and share data across the organization.
2. Greater reliance on AI technologies
AI adoption has accelerated in recent years, with 63% of companies reporting that they’ve nearly achieved their planned AI goals. This trend will continue into next year as AI technologies grow more sophisticated and more businesses deploy AI initiatives to aid decision-making. In fact, 80% of business leaders believe automation can be applied to any business decision.
In particular, companies need to apply AI to analyze massive datasets, organize unstructured data, and provide predictive analytics. These functions are increasingly important as the volume of enterprise data grows at a faster rate than organizations can keep up with. In the next year, AI will help close that gap, freeing up workers to tackle higher-priority tasks.
3. Improved accessibility for business users
Historically, the IT department has managed most aspects of the data ecosystem. But with IT gatekeeping data access, it takes too much time and effort for nontechnical employees to request access, share, or connect to a data source.
But employees no longer need in-depth knowledge of ETL, SQL, or APIs to make the most of their data. New self-service data virtualization tools and user-friendly data platforms are empowering nontechnical users to break down data silos, access data sources, and use analytics to inform and improve their work – turning line of business (LOB) employees into citizen data analysts. Over the next year we’ll see more LOB employees take on that role, democratizing access to data and broadening applications across departments.
4. Renewed focus on data security
Unfortunately, the threat of data breaches, hacks, and other cyberattacks won’t disappear in the new year. Cyber criminals will continue to identify new vulnerabilities and gain access to information housed within enterprise data. But fortunately, data platforms are bolstering governance controls and other cyber defenses to ensure enterprise data stays safe and secure.
Expect to see a greater focus on data security in the coming year, especially when it comes to single sign-on, multi-factor verification, and other zero-trust principles. These measures will prove even more crucial as enterprises look to expand data accessibility and connectivity in a world with ever-evolving threats.
5. Rising adoption of real-time connectivity
Enterprise data doesn’t stay relevant forever. Whether it’s sales figures, inventory updates, or financial figures, organizations require relevant, timely information to make informed decisions.
As companies work to speed up their data lifecycle, many organizations are turning to real-time data connectivity solutions. These tools act as a data access hub, allowing IT and LOBs alike to connect disparate applications and systems without replicating entire datasets – and they will only become more widespread in the year ahead as enterprises accrue more data.
Organizations aren’t facing a lack of data, but rather a lack of access to data – and in the year ahead, more businesses will turn their focus toward solving this persistent pain point. Will 2023 be the year of enterprise data for all? While trends point in that direction, only time – and the steps organizations take right now – will tell.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mike Albritton is SVP, Cloud at CData Software. Mike executes on the company’s cloud application and product strategy. Mike holds a BS in Computer Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MBA from the Duke Fuqua School of Business.
