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6 Business Technology Predictions for 2019

Every year, data becomes more important, and closer to the heart of successful businesses. Businesses have developed a maturity in their view of data - no longer talking about big data, they now look at data intelligently in terms of using it to drive growth and reduce costs.

So, now that we’re well and truly in the age of data, what does the year ahead hold for businesses and their data technology? Here are my business technology predictions for 2019:

1. Machine learning continues to come of age, and Python is the front-runner

Machine learning is one of the most hyped terms of the year, but its disruptive effects are being felt across retail, finance, automotive and many other industries. A confluence of affordable storage, processing power, GPU-optimisations and widely available open-sourced algorithms, as well as deep datasets for training, has improved the available technology dramatically.

Businesses want data to work for them, and this is very much behind the rise of machine learning, where the algorithm takes control. Investment in this area is rising fast, a recent Deloitte survey highlights that 57 per cent of businesses are increasing spending in the technology. This is because the technology is no longer seen as a cost, but an opportunity and a revenue driver. The most successful businesses will be those that invest in their technology and hire the skills to make those investments work.

In 2019, the variety of data science languages will continue to grow. But there is also a clear trend suggesting that Python will become the leading language for machine learning, and Python-based technology, such as the Deep Learning library TensorFlow, will continue to proliferate.

2. Data Science and Business Intelligence converge

For quite some time, large organisations have employed separate teams for standard Business Intelligence (Data Warehouses, Dashboards, Reports, SQL) and Data Science (Statistical Models, R/Python). However, these areas are increasingly converging as the applications of these different technologies are growing together.

In 2019, we’ll see more leading organisations bring their Data Science and Business Intelligence practices together, providing them with timely and centralised access to corporate data. By having a central data repository with integrated data science scripting languages, data scientists can leave their laptops behind and apply statistical models to the same ‘single point of truth’. Thanks to the coming together of these technologies, C-level managers will have visual BI tools that exploit complex data science algorithms under the hood, so they can self-serve reports whenever they are needed.

3. Business intelligence becomes self-service

With the rise in use of data analytics in organisations, we saw the increasing use of business intelligence dashboards for executives and senior staff, giving them customised up-to-date reporting on key business metrics.

Outside of the C-suite, business intelligence reporting is still more ad hoc. Heads of business units generally have to request reports from the analytics function, or they get monthly reports provided for them.

The next evolution will be for business intelligence reporting to become self-service, empowering all employees with the latest up-to-date metrics that are relevant to their job. This is thanks to ever-more powerful and intuitive business intelligence tools sitting upon high-performance analytic databases – databases that can even cope with the Monday-morning workload without a hint of slowdown.

This prediction is backed up by Gartner’s recent research. It found that data analytics remains the biggest area of IT and business investment. Indeed, further research shows that 85 per cent of companies know about the benefits of data and are actively working towards using it better.

4. Data skills will continue to be in high demand

Data-related skills are, and will continue to be, in high demand. In LinkedIn’s annual skills report earlier this year, the hard skills that companies need most were cloud computing followed by statistical analysis and data mining. Data skills have been either the most, or second-most, in-demand skill since 2014, according to LinkedIn.

It’s easy to see why data and cloud skills are so highly sought after as organisations are working hard to deliver on their digital transformation plans. I predict this trend won’t change in 2019 – there’s still going to be a skills shortage in these areas.

5. Distributed ledger technology drives new innovation

Apart from machine learning, blockchain – or distributed ledger technology – is the other most-hyped term of 2018. Large sums have been invested into start-ups that are leveraging these technologies.

A significant part of this innovation will be around transferring and storing value in applications and services – the original use-case for blockchain in the form of Bitcoin. Tokenised applications, and particularly decentralised applications (dApps) – running on platforms such as Ethereum – are still in their early days, but the technology holds a lot of promise.

2019 will be the year that some of this innovation and promise around distributed ledger technology will be realised with real-world applications.

6. Natural language processing enters the business workplace

Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Apple Homepods have brought connected assistants to the home. For the first time, voice interaction has become a mainstream method of controlling devices to play music, get basic information, and administer smart home devices.

However, these devices haven’t made much of an impact in business. My expectation is that in 2019, they will find their voices in niche business scenarios too, and that connected assistants will be interfacing to email, CRM systems, and diaries, to streamline processes and give a helping hand.

I’ve also seen one of our users creating an impressive solution that creates automated SQL queries out of natural language questions about data.

So, it looks like we’re in for another boundary-pushing year in 2019, with data opening up an unchartered frontier of possibilities for businesses. It’ll be interesting to see where we all are this time next year for the 2020 predictions.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Exasol .