The new trend in the Analytics world, Cloud Analytics is slowly becoming a norm. Except for the Cloud tag, companies have used Cloud or External Analytics for a long time. Historically Campaign Management has been part outsourced, part managed by Marketing, using external data besides ‘Enterprise Data’. Traditional Data Vendors / Credit Score providers like D&B are expanding into Cloud BI offerings (acquisition of Indicee) to diversify their offerings. IBM’s acquisition of Silverpop puts them on par with data vendors offering Campaign Management solutions, not to mention pre-packaged Analytics solutions they offer in this space.
All of these new tools and offerings makes it conducive for Business users to use these solutions bypassing IT. The challenge remains how to deal with the fast paced changing norm for the Enterprise Data? Restricting artificially and holding back the trend is not only impossible but also will put the company in a competitive disadvantage. Cloud Analytics is Agile and offers reduction in time for Information access. Cloud deployments are much faster than traditional EDW/BI which is mostly ‘what happened?’ type of data. According to a report from Aberdeen ‘Large Enterprises utilizing Cloud Analytics obtain pertinent information 13% more often than all other large Enterprises’, which is a significant capability compared to the competition. (See Aberdeen Report: Cloud Analytics for the Large Enterprise: Fast Value, Pervasive Impact)
Preparing to deal with the new changing Analytics trend is a must for IT and the Enterprise as whole. Data silos has been an issue in the past, is an issue at present and will be an issue in the future. Creating the environment to deal with overall Information explosion is a key to survival of the company. Partnership between IT and Business will strengthen the Information Governance to manage the Information based decisions and to leverage the offerings in the Marketplace wisely. Adding more sources of Data in silos will restrict the overall Information use but not allowing to experiment will also put the company in a disadvantage position.
Having the visibility to overall Enterprise Information including the Cloud is a critical factor for a successful Information Governance. Companies should forge strategies to put in the framework to manage the Information in a rapidly changing environment with the right people, process and technologies at the Regional and Enterprise level. Information Governance should create a balanced environment by providing appropriate oversight yet foster innovation in leveraging new offerings.
