The tech you choose for your analytics projects will define their success. We talked to two experts about what the solutions of tomorrow are likely to offer.
In our recent blog, how to choose the right tech for your analytics projects, we looked at the importance of having the right tools and solutions underpinning your analytics endeavours.
After all, technology is at the heart of every stage of analytics work, from data ingestion to execution and visualisation. And the advancements made in recent years have been huge. Which begs the question, what will the analytics tech of tomorrow look like?
To find out, we asked two of our in-house experts—Associate Vice Presidents Abhishek Rauniyar and Raman Sharma—for their look ahead.
Raman, what changes do you see happening in the analytics tech space?
Raman: I think there are two things happening at the minute, and it’s all about speed to insight. The first is that people are trying to make sure data is available in almost real time across the business. Obviously, this takes a lot of processing power and investment in infrastructure, but it’s a major focus at the minute and one that can pay huge dividends.
The second thing is that once this data is ingested, people want to make it faster to process. Like I said, the ultimate goal is gaining insights in as close to real time as possible, and that’s becoming increasingly feasible.
Have you seen any good examples of this in the real world?
Very recently, actually. A week or so ago I was watching a cricket match and for whatever reason I had trouble accessing the TV channel, so I went to YouTube looking for some live scores instead. I found a video which not only had the score, but also animated characters reflecting the players on the field and their precise movements. It was a complete recreation of the game; the players had the same playing style as in real life and the ball took the same trajectory—and it was only ever one or two balls behind the live action. I thought that was a great example of what you can do when you can ingest and analyse data at speed.
Abhishek, what technologies do you think will be central to tomorrow’s analytics?
Abhishek: One of the big trends that’s really beginning to find its feet is edge computing. To explain, if you have a smartwatch that performs calculations about your heart rate and how many calories you burn etc., this is a basic example of edge computing. It’s essentially all about doing computing at the storage level, within the device itself.
Again, as with Raman’s examples, this is all about accelerating time to insight. We’re now seeing companies deploying algorithms within devices, like cameras used for computer vision, so they can deliver results with hardly any latency at all.
I think another thing that’s worth keeping an eye on is blockchain—this could have a huge role to play going forwards.
At a concept level, blockchain is about creating a decentralised database where whatever has been written can’t be edited. In that sense it’s a very secure database mechanism, and that provides a lot of advantages to companies that need to ensure data sanctity is maintained. Financial institutions, for instance.
The most obvious example of blockchain, and the thing people often associate it with, is cryptocurrency, but there are endless possible applications. For example, we’ve recently seen Walmart integrate blockchain into its supply chain, so it can track every touchpoint a product goes through before it arrives in our home.
Because this data is tamper-proof, it’s then easy for Walmart to trace the provenance of any issues that occur and resolve them before they have a major impact on the rest of the stock. This would have been impossible five or ten years ago.
For more insights into the past, present and future of the analytics space, explore our latest blog posts.