It is traditional at this time of the year to look forward to trends that will shape the year.

From a data perspective, I believe that 2019 will be a year of finding a balance between three conflicting requirements

1. Business’ continuing need for self-service – particularly to support analytics. Business stakeholders looking for insights will need to easily find and understand the data needed to deliver answers.

2. The increasing complexity of technology advances – such as blockchain, artificial intelligence and machine learning – will conflict with the desire for self-service by adding complexity

3. Consumers will increasingly demand that their data is not used against them, supported by regulations such as GDPR and PoPIA. Companies must find ways to maximise the use and value of data without losing control.

Companies that are able to deliver data governance programs that reduce complexity and present business users with useful data that is easy to find, understand and exploit (in a controlled way) to deliver trusted insights will pull ahead in 2019

Have an insightful year!