5 Key Data Analytics Trends For 2021
Rapid digitisation is one of the things the Covid-19 pandemic has encouraged.
Data looks significantly different now than it did before the epidemic, thanks to a greater emphasis on online services and e-commerce, and correctly using it has never been more crucial for your business.
As a result, 2021 will be a year of catching up, adapting to new data science techniques, and rethinking data capture and analysis.
Businesses of all sizes spend much money to hire data analysts and data scientists to help them understand the new digital environment and figure out how to take advantage of it by changing their business operations. These data analysts will transform how data is seen and applied, making it more accessible and understandable to employees at all levels.
The latest data science trends indicate that a fresh perspective is emerging. Data is no more a science reserved for a small number of experts but rather a valuable chance for every individual in a company to learn and refine their skills.
1. Data and analytics are migrating to the cloud.
Enterprises were first hesitant to shift their data storage to the cloud. One explanation for this was that the cloud was designed for transactional needs rather than memory-intensive analytics.
That is not the case anymore. Many firms moved their data warehouses to the cloud this year or went the hybrid route, using a combination of cloud and on-premise warehouses, as cloud technology became faster, wiser, and more adaptable.
Data warehouses were previously housed in physical storage servers such as Oracle Exadata. At the very least, some of them have gone to the cloud, using services from Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.
The development of commercial homomorphic encryption is assisting this trip. This allows computational processes to be performed on data without ever needing to decode it. That is, without jeopardising data security. This also means that the decryption key holder does not have to be in the same room as the person performing the analysis, figuratively speaking.
One of the final roadblocks to cloud computing is data security. Many businesses were hesitant to utilise the cloud because of security concerns, as data mining and analysis in the cloud are impossible if the data is encrypted. Homomorphic encryption is currently assisting in the solution of this fundamental challenge.
What’s in it for your business: You may choose which data goes to the cloud and which stays on-premise with today’s cloud-based data warehouses. Most provide end-to-end data warehousing, allowing your company to reap the benefits of data analytics straight away. All of this entails making your company more agile.
2. Data and analytics will become even more decentralised.
The barriers between the IT department and the rest of the company had begun to blur even before COVID-19. The pandemic-plagued year 2020 has further weakened that line.
Data is no longer only the domain of the IT team, and analytics is no longer limited to the C-suite. In 2021, more emphasis will be placed on smoothly integrating data platforms throughout an organisation, including easy-to-understand visualisation boards. Self-service analytics tools will also continue to grow in popularity. We are living in the era of the genuinely data-driven. Enterprises have begun to allow employees at various levels to explore and analyse data directly from their workstations or handheld devices, making data more democratic. Enterprises are introducing self-service business intelligence (BI) models thanks to advances in technology and computation. These enable the line employee to uncover trends in his data, contextualise it, and work with other team members to get the most insights.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is used to power today’s BI tools, which are nearly totally automated. Also, self-service technologies like this aid in the collaboration of all departments, from IT to Sales.
What’s in it for your business: Traditional BI delivery strategies lack the adaptability that today’s global business environment requires. With data channels and volumes expanding in real-time today, adding self-service solutions to fully harness the value of this data could be beneficial to your company. These instruments are also cord cutters, as they are less dependant on technology.
3. In 2021, AI and machine learning will be faster, more automated, and NLP will be used.
Both data classification and data modelling will become considerably more automated in 2021. As a result, even more, precise and actionable insights will emerge. Businesses that can see market trends early will be able to stay ahead of the competition.
NLP has made the analysis more user-friendly by translating natural language inquiries into the language required to acquire results. It can assist in the extraction of large amounts of unstructured data made available by the ever-increasing usage of social media, online reviews, and other similar sources.
NLP today allows a computer to understand human language, allowing it to decipher and categorise client discussions. That is to say, using NLP in online social conversations can help brands recognise a feeling on a specific subject in real-time, allowing them the opportunity to pivot on a product midway through a marketing campaign.
According to Gartner, by the end of 2024, 75% of enterprises will have moved from piloting to operationalising AI, resulting in a 5x increase in streaming data and analytics infrastructures. Current approaches are fraught with difficulties. Models developed before COVID that relied on vast volumes of historical data may no longer be valid.
What’s in it for your business: NLP seems more advanced in 2021; there will be a profusion of natural language user interfaces and NLP-based analytics apps. With the advancement of AI technology, computers will better “understand” human language inquiries, learn about the numerous semantic relations and inferences in a query, and even offer real-time business analytics to users. All of this implies that your company can employ AI, machine learning, and natural language processing to turn complex data into practical business intelligence. NLP, in particular, will enable the transformation of analytics data into stories, accelerating the application of analytics in every sphere of life and every unit of your business and supporting you in attaining your business goals even faster.
4. Customer personalisation puts customers in the driver’s seat.
2020, in the manner it played out, firmly placed customers in power, whether in retail or healthcare. Because of work-from-home routines, more customers/users got online than ever before, prompting firms to digitise. With digitisation came more data and a better insight into your customer.
Business dynamics are being rewritten thanks to data science. More firms will focus on providing a highly tailored experience to their customers in the coming year – a reasonable offer at the right time in a customer’s purchase journey.
What’s in it for your business: Customer personalisation must become an element of a company’s business strategy in 2021 due to greater digitisation. It would help if you went where your customers are. Your brand must create a data-driven “Personalised Customer Experience Plan” to excel at customer personalisation. After all, a consumer who is “engaged” will eventually become a satisfied customer.
5. The Customer Data Platform Landscape Will Expand
Customer data platforms (CDP) were in high demand in 2020 due to rising digitisation. A CDP is a sophisticated data hub that brings together everything linked to data, from data sources to consumer information. When dealing with a brand, every customer invariably leaves behind the information. Their footprints can be traced when users browse the Internet or connect with businesses through other online and offline channels such as websites, e-commerce platforms, and in-store encounters.
We anticipate that the CDP’sCDP’s popularity will continue to rise in 2021 and beyond. Contrary to common belief, CDPs are not just for B2C firms; we saw many B2B enterprises use them this year. There is no turning back from online transactions, which means more data is streaming into your business.
A customer data platform collects your consumers’ interactions with your brand and gives a 360-degree snapshot of their journey. It also keeps your database up to date as new data arrives from multiple sources. The data is then organised and matched to consumer profiles by a CDP, allowing businesses to engage with their customers better.
What’s in it for your business: Your company will need to invest in a customer data platform to help create loyal relationships with customers and provide them with the product or service they want. A CDP can assist you in visualising real-time insights from your data. You can go as far as you wish to find the “connection” between seemingly unconnected facts.
It also aids in customer identity resolution and segmentation, allowing your company to establish targeted tactics for retaining its highest-paying consumers. Alternatively, to re-engage customers who have not purchased in a while.
Wrapping Up
COVID-19 has expedited digitisation, establishing a new business norm. Data is a critical ally of the industry now more than ever. Efforts to bridge the gap between data analytics and industry needs will continue in the new year. The emphasis will be on actionable findings. Businesses will invest in AI/ML run platforms and visualisation tools to make analysis more understandable across the organisation.