Gartner Data & Analytics Summit March 2018

1,600 data specialists, Chief Data Officers, master data and analytics experts met again, this year, for one of the leading European events in London, the Gartner Data & Analytics Summit 2018.

In the context of digital transformation, business models are increasingly determined by data. Those with faster access to information, who can analyse it more effectively and draw the right conclusions from it, can offer their customers a better service and a better product. The value of information and its exploitation largely dominated this year's event. The summit was revolving around four key aspects: Trust, Diversity, Literacy and Complexity.

Building trust in data throughout the organisation is a crucial issue. To achieve it, you need the right technologies and processes in place. Gartner predicts that, by 2022, we will be consuming more fake information than truthful information. Thus, there must be a way to verify information and to distinguish between "fake news” and real news. Many companies are already starting to use artificial intelligence to check the accuracy of information.

Another essential component of any data strategy is organisation. Many presentations were centred on the role of the Chief Data Officer (CDO) and how data stewardship can be organised in a meaningful way. “Diversity” means, in this context, that the interdisciplinary cooperation of teams from IT and other departments, of different genders and social groups with different backgrounds, undoubtedly offers several advantages. According to Gartner, only 13% of CIOs are female.

Gartner defines Literacy as “the ability to read, work with, analyze, and argue with data”. Businesses collect data and must learn to interpret them correctly. To this end, they will invest, in the coming years, in master data models and metadata management (“Data about data”).
Already, the complexity of existing data and of data that is being created poses a considerable challenge. Modern data lakes simplify the collection of data, but at the same time make their interpretation more difficult due to their complexity.

The reorganisation of data and of corresponding processes to analyse it are some of the major challenges that companies are facing. Where to invest? How to get the right people and train them? How to define the KPIs? Gartner recommends that companies primarily focus on the following dimensions: business value, organisation, governance and technology.

The Master Data Management community was keen to hear what the analysts had to say about the current Magic Quadrant. Besides the well-established providers, Gartner also highlighted the newly included solutions. Many companies are currently shifting from centralised solutions to interconnected systems and micro-service architectures ("from Collect to Connect"). Thus, MDM is moving from a data management solution to "a technology-based discipline that combines business practices with Information Technology (IT) to guarantee the uniformity, accuracy, governance, semantic consistency and ownership of a company’s master data."

parsionate is a customer of Gartner. We use their studies, market data and recommendations, including the well-known Magic Quadrants and Hype Cycle as a neutral and high-quality basis to work with our customers. Furthermore, we maintain a regular and intensive personal dialogue with their renowned analysts for Master Data Management and Data Quality.