As the world of Business Intelligence tools, services, and tech continues to advance and evolve at a breakneck pace, keeping up with the very latest innovations can prove challenging.  

From understanding how the cloud continues to shift and change, to putting the latest Power BI tools to use, the BI landscape doesn’t show any signs of slowing down in the face of constant advancements. 

Below, we’re examining the BI trends we expect to rise in 2022 and beyond, and what they’ll mean for your enterprise.  

At-a-glance, we’ll be discussing: 

• The future of the cloud as-a-service  
• Fully realising master data management and quality 
• Embedding analytics from the first principle 
• Collaborative BI and the benefits for your teams 
• The shift of data literacy to become company-wide 

The future of the cloud as-a-service 

The cloud enabled many businesses throughout the pandemic to adapt, evolve, and overcome the significant demands of remote working and virtual desktops. So much so, that Microsoft announced that the spike in cloud adoption was responsible for more than two years of digital transformation in two months.  

But now that the cloud has served its purpose as a solution, it’s time for enterprises to realise the full potential of the cloud as-a-service, with a wealth of advantages beyond simply providing a necessary fix. By migrating to a fully mobile or hybrid solution, businesses can leverage almost real-time analysis from any location for accessible business decisions, while taking advantage of a scalable, cost-effective data storage platform for enterprises on a budget.  

Learn more about how the cloud can enhance your BI and analytics.

CLOUD SERVICES

Fully realising master data management and quality 

Poor data quality means poor insights. As well as understanding the full value of comprehensive and scalable data management platforms, we expect more and more enterprises to understand the importance of ensuring a high level of data quality.  

Data quality and master data management practices serve as the core underlying foundations behind all aspects of Business Intelligence. Analysing data without an assured level of data quality will prove difficult, giving unreliable results that are likely to change.  

This can cause further issues when creating high-level data visualisations to forecast using historical data due to a lack of accuracy and will ensure that further efforts such as Machine Learning practises are out of the question. As more and more enterprises continue to realise the full potential of advanced BI solutions, we expect to see a greater focus on ensuring optimum quality than ever before.  

Embedding analytics from the first principle 

Another core trend that we’re expecting to continue is the need to embed analytics within tools and services from the very beginning. We truly are living in an age of data, with reports available to us in all shapes and sizes – such as Apple’s screen time features. Knowing that users value these reports, more of an effort is being made to make them available for more insights and context than ever before. 

But what use is a report without reliability? Embedding analytics from the first principle goes hand in hand with an overall focus on data quality, prioritising the reliability and streamlining of data by communicating a need for trusted intelligence throughout software and tools.  

With business users demanding more and more insights from the data they’re using, we expect this focus on providing accessible data analysis throughout development to only continue to evolve. 

Collaborative BI and the benefits for your teams 

Improved collaborative capabilities within Business Intelligence tools such as Power BI provide users with the opportunity to not only enhance communication and establish a universal outlook based on shared results, but also decrease the possibilities of harmful data silos emerging. 

Previously, radical collaboration tools such as those within Google’s applications like Docs and Sheets have revolutionised how users interact with and interpret information. Long gone were the days of isolated documents in favour of a holistic, universal document that emphasised a seamless approach.  

Now, these tools are becoming more and more commonplace within the world of BI, allowing decision-makers to query, discuss, and examine results within the same dashboard. As the benefits of collaborative BI become fully realised, we look forward to seeing what the future of these exciting developments holds. 

The shift of data literacy to become company-wide 

Company-wide data literacy may be one of the most critical skills for enterprises in 2022 and beyond, ensuring that teams can responsively handle unexpected challenges to analytics and BI frameworks, while also being aware of the consequences of not adhering to data governance processes.  

Ultimately, establishing business-wide data literacy practices will help to generate a data-driven culture – one that cements the BI tools and processes in use for greater value across all levels.  

Learn more about why a data-driven culture is important in our blog on missing data here. 

Begin your journey to better Business Intelligence today

At DataShapa, staying ahead of the competition and leveraging the very latest best practices to realise the full potential of your data is our passion.

We work with businesses to transform their BI frameworks and enhance their data-driven insights to uncover greater intelligence. To learn more about how we can help employ the very latest BI trends for your business, and for a free initial consultation, get in touch here.