Run your business at the speed of thought
Are you ready? Join Forrester at the second annual Data Strategy & Insights Forum on November 5–6 in Austin.
Primers
Whether you model your data and analytics practice around an insights-driven strategy or are transitioning your business to run on algorithms, these visions have greater implications than our technology heritage has prepared us for. The factory model for assembly-line delivery assumed that machines don't think. And process optimization had the effect of turning humans into machines. Today, machine learning solutions and, more specifically, artificial intelligence breaks these paradigms. Machines are more human and empathetic, while intelligent bots allow employees to step out of the mechanical skin.
It sounds like science fiction. Can you believe the hype?
The future is closer than you think. Technology giants and forward-leaning enterprises are challenging the way digital, data, and analytics deliver value as technology and as a new intelligent workforce. At the same time, these same technologies are moving data and analytics from data centers, the back office, and analytics zones into the edge of business, where intellect, expertise, and insight run at the speed of thought rather than the speed of ETL.
First, come look at the changing landscape of technology, where data and insights are in tune with the cadence of decisions and actions inside our applications, automation, and devices. The world of APIs, microservices, and containers is more than an application thing -- it's now a data thing. Data management and governance will no longer stop at moving the data to an engagement tier. This is the next generation of the information fabric that also has downstream implications for the data platform, cloud, and compute infrastructure itself. This is your new platform for machine learning, the artificial intelligence information system.
Second, get a glimpse into the future, when data and analytics will morph companies at the molecular level. The defining factor of internet giants and forward-leaning enterprises is not what you see in the market that is already disruptive; it's what is happening behind the scenes in the way these firms are redefining what technology is and what their business is and how they are experimenting with new ecosystems and research-grown capabilities. These companies set the tone and the new bedrock of business to be adaptive enterprises with their digital, data, and analytics investments. That is impressive on its own. But that is just the beginning. These firms are now beginning to show what this foundation can do and how they are not just blurring the line but removing it from between strategy, operations, and technology. The era of the avatar business is coming. Buckle up.
This post was written by Principal Analyst Michele Goetz and originally appeared here.