Last year’s CTO Christmas list included an exciting mix of new and maturing technologies promising to transform the way we do business in 2019. So, like the January Sale bargain hunters, I’ve been chasing around recently making sure my shopping bags are full of new technology opportunities and data management trends for the coming year, such as:

• Internet of Things
• Mobile
• Big Data
• Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence
• Automation and Robotics
• Virtual and Augmented Reality
• Data Streaming and Pipelines
• Location-Based Information and GIS

Just like receiving a new toy at Christmas and discovering the batteries were not included, success with any of the above technologies requires good Data Management practices, or they won’t work.

Cultural Shift

Recent patterns in digital transformation suggest 2019 will see Data Management processes and technologies maturing to deliver advantage at the intersection of the enterprise trinity (business, process, and people) supporting a cultural shift within organisations where all stakeholders will contribute to Data Management in the expectation of improved outcomes. This new culture, coupled with advances in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence algorithms, applied to data, will ensure Data Management retains its front-of-mind importance and push the role of the Data Engineer further to the front.

Organisations already putting increased effort into managing data may feel they have done so at the expense of having fewer resources available for Analytics. To mitigate this, the development of scalable, fully integrated, Single-Seat Data Management solutions, such as Trifacta, has increased and more businesses will utilise these solutions to optimise their collection, distribution and management of data this year.

Compliance and Governance

Regulatory authorities are becoming increasingly strict about governance, and handling data from all channels as volumes continue to grow. Managing data is more challenging when dealing with requirements such as GDPR which requires transparency in handling customer data but, if accomplished correctly, implementing sound privacy practices could become an additional source of revenue. Cloud has transformed business operations, and in 2019 we are likely to see more hybrid solutions being used to address privacy and security concerns. GDPR compliant, secure hybrid cloud solutions will enable large volumes of business data to be migrated to the Cloud, thus reducing Data Centre costs tremendously.

Metadata Management

Changing business requirements, new data sources and new technologies require enhanced metadata management. In 2019, we’ll see a new breed of tools that support better automation and scanning capabilities to understand data structures and transformation mappings. These tools will make extensive use of Machine Learning and AI algorithms to improve their efficacy continually. Enhanced metadata (technical data semantics, structures, types, and protocols) is a crucial enabler for decentralised and virtualised Data Management solutions supporting next-generation cloud/hybrid-based applications and data platforms.

Data Catalogue

As well as improved metadata, better data catalogues describing the domain, lineage, profile and quality of data assets will help to deal with human subjectivity by enabling users to score data quality, trust and compliance levels. Data users will concentrate their queries according to trustworthiness or usefulness ratings others have set.

Success

Mindful of the increasing selection of transformational technology solutions that could deliver unfair advantage this year, it’s inspiring to think that success, in any domain, is predicated on getting your Data Management regime in good shape. This year’s set of business challenges will require a holistic strategy applied to the management and protection of corporate data because data is at the heart of everything.

Ntegra has extensive knowledge and experience in Data Management and understands its importance in underpinning all the technology tracks you may be considering this year. If you’d like to talk more about how we can help, please contact us.