Big Analytics – Not Just for the Big Guys

Business analytics, data warehousing, data marts or sandboxes. No matter the name, it's all about using data and information to make more informed business decisions. However the industry is taking a turn and analytics isn't just for big companies any longer.

There will come a day and it is coming quickly, when people in all corners of every organization, not just executives, will rely on analytics to improve their business. Today business people do the same thing, day in and day out. They sit at their desks and run the same queries to answer the same questions. Luckily we've moved away from the traditional batch reports, but we are still not in a place where we have near real-time data delivered to our inboxes for analysis. Thankfully the traditional method of cleansing data and preparing it for analytics with master data management is starting to disappear.

In the future, we will all have social feeds of data that we subscribe to in order to exploit the most relevant data feeds as they become available - in near real-time. I think we've finally gotten to a place where business users find it no longer sufficient to sit and wait for data to be integrated into the warehouse and for IT to create custom reports. While the data may be less than perfect, smart analytics people know how to work with less-than-perfect data. I’m not suggesting rampant versions of the truth floating around an organization, but having only one official version of the truth that is controlled by IT is becoming a misnomer and will no longer keep business users satisfied. Let's also keep in mind the perspective of IT.

If you were to interview those responsible for creating data marts for analytics, you'd find some unhappy campers. They have to rationalize the data first and it's less than fulfilling. They truly want to support timely decision making to help their business make money, but traditional tools haven't given them that luxury. The result is business users researching and purchasing their own tools.

Take for example, Birst, a business intelligence SaaS provider. They have customers who have opted to find their own tools - ones that offer ease of use and the ability to easily tap into their desired source systems – and without the help or approval from IT. One of the things Birst has found is that users want to create mini data marts or sandboxes from their source system data. This way they can play with the data fast and easily. They've said that they are happy to pay for this service from their own departmental budget so that they don't have to wait in the long IT queue. Lyzasoft has the same vision as Birst. The company's mission is to provide analytics for everyone and promises tools that are so simple to use, even students and the average user can analyze data. IBM's Big Sheets initiative has the same mantra - getting more data to more users, quickly. When you look at the landscape of data warehousing vendors, the classic DB2 models being delivered by companies such as Oracle and Teradata are being challenged by newer and more flexible companies like Greenplum, Vertica Systems and Aster Data.

Others are leveraging Hadoop such as Cloudera. Analytics shouldn’t be considered a luxury. It is a competitive weapon that all business users should have at their fingertips. Users need to be able to tap multiple data sources with no stopgaps. The problem is that business users change what they need on a daily basis and IT can't keep up. What a business user wants today won’t be the same tomorrow. So will IT begin to embrace the cloud and data-as-a-service offerings? The answer is yes. We are seeing a change today and those in IT who are leading the charge are becoming their company's hero.