A decade in data, a decade to come

First of all I’d like to take the chance to wish everyone in our network, colleagues, customers and friends a very happy new year.

The last decade was an incredible one for the data industry.  I realised before writing this that 2010 was actually when I started at my first data management consultancy, so it’s given me the perfect chance to reflect on what I’ve witnessed in the last 10 years.  

Data Insights out of IT and into the business

One thing that stands out is the relevance of insights through data within business functions.  The reason why we do what we do at Rittman Mead is because we believe that data solutions will drive positive change for us all in the future.  Making it accessible, insightful and interesting to people who are doing great things for great companies is the goal for all of us.

During the last decade we saw the mass market adoption of line of business data discovery tools such as Tableau, Oracle Data Visualization, QlikSense & Microsoft PowerBI.  All wonderfully innovative products that have flown the flag for bringing insights through data into the business.  

What is Big Data?

Also, what has happened to the Big Data hype which was a huge back in 2010?

Ten years on do we think it lived up to its hype?  Do we even know what it means? On reflection was it as groundbreaking as we might have thought at the time?  This is an argument that could be had but might never end.

Public Cloud Cover

One thing is for sure - the adoption at scale of public Cloud, SaaS, Storage and what it seems is infinite amounts of processing power has been huge since 2010.  We've seen AWS and Microsoft Azure leading the way, we see Google and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure catching up.  We know there are pros, cons, knowns and unknowns when moving to Cloud hosted applications and platforms.  We know that one thing is for sure - come 2030 the Cloud will be bigger whether we like it or not.

Streams of Events

Finally the emergence of event driven architectures is as innovative as it is complex. Large growth companies like Uber have built their business model on the ability to process huge amounts of events at low latency in order to operate.  Think demand + supply and Uber’s dynamic pricing model.  Fortunately open source projects like Kafka and particularly organisations like Confluent, the company behind Kafka, have made it easier to integrate this functionality to businesses throughout the world.

It wouldn’t be fair to say that the innovation in the data industry has always been used ethically in the last 10 years and this is something that we all have a part to play in going forwards.  The Facebook / Cambridge Analytica scandal certainly made everyone reflect on the importance of using data for positive and ethical outcomes rather than underhand and in-transparent tactics.

And whats next?

As we embark on a new decade, we at Rittman Mead are excited about what is to come.  Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Augmented Analytics is going to hit the mainstream and will play a part in all of our lives.  But the good news is - there will always be a place in this market for people.  Data is necessary, sophisticated machines are necessary but it relies on the people for it to work whether that be building an algorithm or making a decision based on the outcome of the information that a particular algorithm has generated.  We will see more automation and this is a brilliant thing.  Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Autonomous databases such as Oracle’s offering are designed to breed innovation, not replacement.

Come and meet us in February

For us it all starts in February at Oracle OpenWorld Europe.  We will be exhibiting and presenting here and there will be insightful, thought provoking and relatable content throughout the two days.  Augmented analytics & autonomous will be at the top of the agenda and rightly so.  What’s more, it’s completely free to attend. Registration details can be found here:

We’d love to meet with you if you do decide to come.  To make this easier (as we know there is a lot to cover on days like these) we have set up a calendar where you can book a meeting slot with one of our sales team or technical consultants.  We can talk about:

• Oracle
• AI/ML
• What are we doing?
• What are you doing?
• Anything you like in an informal setting
  

Please feel free to book a time slot using the link below:

https://calendly.com/rittman-mead/oracle-openworld

Finally we wish everyone a very prosperous new decade - who knows where we will be by 2030!