The development of cloud software is bringing database technology to the masses. In the past, companies had to spend thousands of dollars just to make sure they can start using advanced analytics that required strong hardware requirements and computing power.
In the recent years, the democratization of the cloud increased the adoption of advanced analytics across different industries. Companies, which traditionally didn’t use much of analytics, are starting to dip their toes in the ocean of analytics. Now with an opportunity to store large amounts of data in the cloud and access it from anywhere and anytime, the adoption of analytics will increase.
According to McKinsey experts, to fully benefit from this emerging trend, companies can use the following three strategies.
1. Allocate budget and move to the cloud.
This sounds simple yet some companies, especially those in more traditional industries are still hesitant. In some countries and industries there might be regulatory restrictions applied to cloud computing. However, when things and budget allow it, moving to cloud is the best option. On-premise technology is simply no match for all the capabilities that modern cloud technologies bring.
2. Building a data-driven culture.
As the world becomes increasingly more complex (and confusing), companies need to start relying more on data when making decisions, as opposed to past experiences and gut feeling. This can be easier said than done, humans are after all the creatures of habit. However, the adoption of advanced analytics requires an organizational environment in which data plays the central role.
3. Encourage citizen data analysts.
This is closely related to the previous point. A strong data culture in an organization will increase a number of citizen data analysts, a new breed of business users who are learning the analytics skills and helping their companies to adopt new tools. The higher rates of technology adoption will create the data fluency gap. Companies can solve this gap by re-skilling existing employees by putting them through data analytics training sessions and bootcamps, for example.
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated IT spending and changed the mindset once and for all. In 2020 it became apparent that cloud services are fundamental for digital transformation. The adoption of cloud is no longer a “nice to have”, now it is a “must have”. And this trend is expected to continue in the future.
Not too long ago, cloud services were a technology for large enterprises who could afford the costs. However, with the evolution of cloud, there are options for smaller companies. And the smaller companies often can adopt the technology faster because they are more flexible, less bureaucratic and most of the time don’t have issues with legacy tools.