With so much to unpack in Gartner’s “Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms” report, it’s easy to overlook the Strategic Planning Assumptions outlined at the top. The facts and figures are at the same time insightful and staggering as technology evolves, but what does it all translate to and what should you do with this information? We’ve done the dissecting for you to determine what these facts and figures mean for FP&A and BI tools as they apply to your business.
By 2022, augmented analytics technology will be ubiquitous, but only 10% of analysts will use its full potential.
Augmented analytics is the umbrella under which machine learning and artificial intelligence fall. Using these technologies to prepare data “are fast becoming key sources of competitive differentiation, and therefore core investments, for vendors,” according to the report. Automated insights are the core attribute of augmented analytics that apply ML techniques to automatically generate insights for end users.
By 2022, 40% of machine learning model development and scoring will be done in products that do not have machine learning as their primary goal.
ML can be most powerful, for example, by identifying the most important attributes in a dataset. This includes out-of-the-box life cycle data prepared by the automated ML model building. Clear product vision remains key with market momentum, including vendors that offer end-to-end data preparation and complex data models. Operationalizing ML models in a single integrated platform makes a product stand out above competitors.
By 2023, 90% the world’s top 500 companies will have converged analytics governance into broader data and analytics governance initiatives.
Only a small percentage of vendors on Gartner’s report utilize analytics governance initiatives. Of those that do, cataloging and additional governance remain at the top, while also being coupled with augmented analytics. Related tasks also include scheduling and monitoring data management tasks. Governance tends to be area of risk in relation to administrative capabilities.
By 2025, 80% of consumer or industrial products containing electronics will incorporate on-device analytics.
In terms of manageability, the report details capabilities that are used to “track usage, manage how information is shared and by whom, perform impact analysis and work with third-party applications,” adding the cloud supports the ability of “building, deploying and managing analytics and analytic applications in the cloud, based on data both in the cloud and on-premises, and across multicloud deployments.” Gartner notes the use of embedded analytics, such as a software development kit with an application programming interface, as an example.
By 2025, data stories will be the most widespread way of consuming analytics, and 75% of stories will be automatically generated using augmented analytics techniques.
Like social media, data has gone the way of storytelling, which Gartner describes as the “ability to combine interactive data visualization with narrative techniques in order to package and deliver insights in a compelling, easily understood form for presentation to decision makers.” This can include data models, visualization, and templates, in addition to automated insight and source connectivity, as well as modules that can be embedded into third-party tools.