No one can precisely predict the future. It is, however, possible to get an idea of what’s going to happen tomorrow based on what we see today. The world of business intelligence is interesting because of its rapid development over the past few years. When things move fast, it’s especially tricky to know where they’re going to end up down the line. There are some signals in the BI world that can clue us in a bit to what’s in store for the next year. Here are a few BI trends to watch in 2019.
Push & Pull
Another burgeoning trend in business intelligence is the ability for analytics systems to anticipate insights business users might need. Not only will users be able to pull answers to their questions, they will automatically be provided answers to questions they have yet to ask (push). This could allow businesses to capitalize on opportunities they might have otherwise missed.
Open Data
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When we think of business intelligence, we often consider it to be a closed system. After all, isn’t the goal to find ways to improve operations within the organization itself? This is often the truth. However, you can also make the case that utilizing open data can be beneficial to certain forms of BI. Things move faster the more technology drives us forward. In turn, the world around us is also developing faster than ever before. Using open data—or data sourced from external sources, available for use by anyone—can give businesses insight into otherwise unseen trends.
Mobile BI
Everything seems to be trending toward mobility these days. The world of BI is no different. Mobile BI should continue to be an important trend going into 2019—and for good reason. It only makes sense that users should have the ability to access their data tools from their smartphone or tablet. This is an especially useful feature for people who are working in the field, or from home.
Self-Service BI
In the past, business intelligence had to be done exclusively by dedicated teams. The process was back-and-forth—requiring days, if not weeks or months of communication to get a result. Self-service business intelligence tools are changing all that. These platforms, from companies like ThoughtSpot, are usable by people without extensive analytics backgrounds, but still provide in-depth capabilities. Relational search is one of the best examples of a self-service BI tool. It basically works like a search engine for analytics. Users just need to enter an inquiry, and they immediately get accurate, synthesized results—including visualizations. This will be one of the big things going into 2019.
Embedded Analytics
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Embedded analytics is highly useful because it bridges the gap between business applications and business intelligence. With embedded analytics, users can take useful visualizations from BI applications and embed them directly into other places. People using programs with more basic analytics can now get in-depth visualizations within those platforms.
AI & Machine Learning at the Core of BI Multi-Cloud Support
As business intelligence tools evolve, so do their ability to support data from public and private clouds and on-prem data solutions. This is known as multi-cloud support. Better yet, artificial intelligence and machine learning can dive into your data on your behalf to return new insights. Thus helping you better understand the data you have collected and leverage it in a usable and informative manner.
Data Governance
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There’s no doubt data governance will continue to be an important BI trend going into 2019. This holds especially true with some of the high-profile data breaches that have happened over the past few years. At the end of the day, no matter what your organization does, it needs to keep its data safe and secure. This will always be the truth.
So, while crystal ball gazing and tarot cards can’t reveal the future, it’s possible to make intelligent assumptions about the future based on what’s happening now. These are a few of the trends that are likely to dominate the BI world in 2019. Is your organization ready for what’s to come?