2020: 10 Critical Trends Facing the Data, Information, and Analytics Industry
The following are the most important developments requiring attention across the industry today.
Important Details
At the end of last year, we analyzed the most important industry announcements of 2019; these now give way to the most important trends in motion for 2020. From the perspective of our analysts, partners, and community chairs, it’s essential to tend to the following.
1. Data, Data, Data
While platform and emerging tech like AI, the cloud, blockchain, and VR have captured most of our industry’s attention over the last decade, they point back to the value in unique data sets and derivative data based on their combination. This data is not formulated simply through the magic of algorithms but rather through a carefully designed process that is both tech-enabled and augmented with human-powered insight. Enterprises are trying to manage their data, and applications have an insatiable thirst for it. Data marketplaces are emerging. There is gold in them thar data hills — at the end of the day, it’s always about the data. It’s foundational to the decade ahead, so mind the data.
2. The Importance of Partnerships
No single data or technology provider or commercial business has the wherewithal, capabilities, or data to fulfill practitioner workflow use cases on their own. Information solution providers recognize that to build and deliver best-in-class digital services, they will have to collaborate with a broader array of business types, including commercial businesses — some of which may also be their customers — and adjacent data, technology, and telecom providers. Partnership ecosystems are on the rise and are an essential part of modern strategy in our industry today. Proactively map partners to strategy.
3. Regulation’s Persistent March
The laws protecting privacy (such as GDPR and CCPA) are coming online at the same time that numerous B2B media companies transition toward data-focused marketing services. It turns out that the old controlled circ model with an emphasis on collecting first-party data, including intent signals, gives those B2B players valuable and compliant data just as aggregators of third-party data scramble to clean up their suddenly threatened data supply chains. The storm clouds will finally part for those publishers that can develop ways to monetize their own first-party subscriber data, which marketers will continue to seek out.
Ironically, as this plays out, healthcare institutions are giving away personal health information in droves because they’ve decided that big platforms (read Google) are their new best friends to help analyze electronic health records and provide the moonshot to cure cancer or whatever other big problem ails us. The regulators are barking up the privacy tree when it comes to marketing but failing to recognize the loopholes around our most intimate data: our health records. This “push me pull you” in the regulatory environment will continue until the next big downturn or the next systemic failure (of the likes of Facebook). Lobby the regulators for what’s right.
4. FinTech Drives Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Objectives
ESG investment strategies are creating indices that help investors track companies with sustainable business practices. However, they’re also prompting new data platforms that help companies comply with the EU’s climate and energy agreement as well as aspects of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and diversity and inclusion (D&I) initiatives (which are hot, hot, hot). Social movements will increasingly feed our financial movements due especially to millennials and Gen Z, who are tired of the status quo, concerned about climate change and corruption, and want politicians and corporations to wake up. CSR, D&I, and ESG are the new acronyms, and our industry’s companies are in a strong position to lead the charge — not only by measuring these phenomena but also by ensuring that our companies are behaving congruently.
5. Geospatial Is Hot
Like weather information before it, the next category of hot data comes from the sky. Many small satellite imagery providers (e.g., Earthnow) and other aerial imagery providers are entering the market or garnering large investments (such as Orbital Insight and Descartes Labs). At the same time, the use cases for aerial imagery are exploding: disaster response (fighting forest fires), construction (capturing project progress and monitoring resource use), agriculture (monitoring crop health), energy (predicting oil supply and monitoring transmission lines and solar and wind farms), and the environment (monitoring air pollution).
The industry is always looking for the next big “information category” that can be used ubiquitously across vertical industries. We call these horizontal plays, and just like “orange is the new black,” geospatial and aerial imagery is the “new means to green.” Evaluate whether and where this data category fits into the portfolio.
6. AI as a Service
While the acronym “AIaaS” is more than a bit awkward, just like SaaS, DaaS, PaaS, and everything else “aaS,” we will see AI capabilities become democratized. This will occur not only through the likes of Azure and AWS but also from all the trajectories involved in making data point to algorithms and algorithms point to analytic outcomes — both predictive and prescriptive.
At last year’s Outsell Signature Event, we spoke about the need for companies to trade algorithms; logic can be exchanged and so can methodologies. There are parallels to conditions in vertical industries, and methodologies for problem-solving can be portable. We will not only see algorithms traded but also see the capabilities that make them become embedded in platforms, and riding on those platforms will also be data marketplaces that enable the algorithms. The platforms (SF.com, AWS, Microsoft Azure, etc.) are making bold moves. Too bad IBM now owns content, as it makes their neutrality a question. Participate in the AI economy and play nice in the sandbox.
7. Military Use Points the Way
Just as DARPA spawned the internet, and the CIA launched a venture arm in Silicon Valley, military applications drive the future of information and information technology. This now means global competition in all things AI and various sub-genres like machine learning, image recognition, voice recognition, natural language processing, neural nets, and so on. The very highest levels of governments around the world are focused on winning what may, unfortunately, best be called the war for AI supremacy. And as we said above, now Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, Google, and others are making it simple and easy to build both highly beneficial and highly dangerous applications. Nation-states and bad actors are playing out the battle for our planet’s future. Choose a path.
8. The Importance of Life-Long Learning
Corporations are realizing that there are talent shortages everywhere, educational institutions aren’t turning out all the talent that’s needed, and big job opportunities are emerging in the white-collarization of blue-collar jobs. All this points to a need for institutions to do more to support the learning trajectory. Individuals are becoming life-long learners thanks to ubiquitous access to information and recognition that the divide between consumers and professionals is ever more blurred and companies are paying a premium for qualified talent. This means that it’s not only essential to create learning opportunities for our own staffs but also to ensure that learning plays a relevant role in our industry’s offerings. Make up for lost ground where higher education leaves off.
9. Humans (and Human Metaphors) are the Next UI
We are moving away from text-based interfaces, and we predict text will go the way of the dodo bird within the lifetimes of most of our industry’s CEOs. The next generation doesn’t know cursive, can’t fathom calligraphy, and is even moving beyond electronic text. While typing (euphemistically called “keyboarding”) became a “101 class” over the past two decades, it will give way to methods of engaging with knowledge that make 140 characters obsolete. Facial recognition, Siri (when it works), Alexa in our homes, voice, AR/VR, handprints, and eye scans will all have roles in the way we consume and use information and commerce solutions. We are seeing the emergence of “emotion AI” using voice as a predictor of feeling. We said years ago that the next UI was no UI, but it’s actually 100 UIs, with text taking lower priority in the long run. Ensure that the relevant UIs of the future are in the product roadmap while planning for next-generation consumption and use patterns.
10. Ownership
Last but not least, we can’t forget where we ended up last year. CEOs are losing their jobs at faster rates. Private equity has more ownership in our industry than ever before. And always there is smart money and dark money, and the difference, when operating under one of those owners, is clear. Either way, PE has a foothold in the shape of our industry and the persistent M&A that makes the industry go ‘round and ‘round. Know owners and ownership plans, and have both a personal and business plan. Some trends just don’t change.
Why This Matters
These trends are taking root and will play out over the coming decade. Plan for them. Map the next steps to the Outsell Growth Framework, or let us do it for you. We are here to discuss the implications of these on any particular business. Embrace the change. And as 2020 continues, enjoy the ride.