2023’s Top 3 Data Trends and Predictions for Businesses

Data, and its resulting insights, are vital for any modern business. We all know this. But with 2023 well and truly underway, we need to ask “what’s next?” 

The main thing is this: the world is turning to smarter data management. 

For example, BI (Business Intelligence), which refers to applications and technologies employed in gathering, analysing, and presenting business information, is now more relevant than ever. 

Global data storage has exceeded 40 trillion gigabytes; with the amount of data stored increasing, so too does the importance of BI. 

So, whether you’re ahead of the curve, or behind the times, we’ve covered these trends so you aren’t left behind. Let’s jump in. 

Increased Cloud Adoption

It is predicted that, by 2027, more than 50% of enterprises will use industry cloud platforms to accelerate their business initiatives.

Automated cloud cost optimisation saves businesses time and money, ensuring companies monitor their environments consistently to eliminate waste. So, it’s no surprise more than 40% of technical and business professionals are using automated policies to shut down their workloads after hours. 

So, we can see that organisations can really benefit from a move to the cloud, by cutting costs, increasing efficiency, and turning to outside help to address security concerns. 

This will all ride on whether businesses which handle highly sensitive data will begin to put their faith in the cloud, providing its reliability and professional credibility.

 But its popularity right now is hard to ignore, with end-user spending jumping from $145B in 2017 to $490B in 2022. This is likely to continue. But why?

The fact is this: the cloud is useful. Really useful. The cloud infrastructure allows businesses to access computing resources on demand, without all the trouble of maintaining the physical infrastructure.

Plus, with new tech such as AI (artificial intelligence) and ML (machine learning), the traditionally found issues with the cloud will be alleviated this year. Issues with finding the right cloud components will be solved by purpose-built frameworks, prescriptive architectures, and a viable network. Talking about AI, it’s now time for our next prediction.

The AI Revolution

I’m sure this one is coming as no surprise. Most businesses struggle with the amount of data they collect, with nearly 90% of data being unstructured or having no defined schema. 

So, AI and ML tech will allow businesses to analyse this data smarter and faster, and find patterns that aren’t readily apparent. AI can tackle the most complex data types and uncover the hidden value of unstructured data at scale, especially when combining AI tech with data analytics and BI tools.  

Plus, AI and ML improvements are compatible with another trend gaining attention in the last year: data storytelling. 

This approach combines data, narrative, and visualisations, blending the accuracy of numbers with a vision and call-to-action. This marriage allows data stories to stand out, gain the attention of decision-makers, and improve the quality of decisions. 

As a result of the AI and ML revolution, this can be facilitated by a little thing called cognitive analytics.

This advanced form of data analytics takes complex and unstructured data sets, and uses AI and ML to process them. Far more effective than traditional methods, Cognitive Analysis takes these sets and helps organisations extract insights and make predictions, so they can gain a far more comprehensive view of their data.

But as the popularity of AI grows, so do the ethical concerns surrounding it. 

An issue haunting the tech is the way in which AI algorithms make deductions and influence decisions. These algorithms aren’t transparent, so it can be difficult to determine whether the datasets contain biases. Biases need to be taken into account once the tech has reached its final conclusion.

Data-Driven vs Intuition-Based Decision Making

According to Gartner, 65% of B2B sales organisations will transition from intuition-based to data-driven decision-making by 2025. 

This will be achieved using tech that united workflow, data, and analytics. But why the shift? Well, it all started and continued with the pandemic, and now succeeds it. 

The rush to virtual selling played a huge role in shaping strategies, with the technologies behind this being helpful in improving customer engagement by facilitating meetings and providing asynchronous interactions. 

So, in 2023, organisations will turn to a technology stack which is based on improving buyer engagement, enhancing and encouraging data-driven decisions which streamline the process of a business, and introducing simplified seller workflows.

Plus, virtual selling technologies simplify seller workloads through automation and streamlining user experience. But it goes even further, equipping sellers with stakeholder and company data which generated situationally aware insights to influence messaging, strategy, and workflows. 

So, it’s a case of improving the existing talents of sellers using cold, hard data – the ultimate dream team. 

So, what’s next?

Data is and will continue to be, a key player in technology and business. Big data is becoming more accessible than ever before, due to the rise of AI and similar technologies.

So, in 2023, how businesses approach their data will determine their success. Those businesses that are able to take advantage of their wealth of data, and the resulting insights and patterns, will be far more agile and more adaptable to shifting landscapes and customers. 

Keep an eye out for more from ClicData on this topic – we’ll be circling back around at the end of the year for a “where are they now” on these predictions and trends. Stay tuned!

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