Supplier Spotlight: Denominator
Supplier Spotlights highlight Crux's partners and shine a light on their unique data product offerings.
5 min read
Scout Scholes
Dec 22, 2022 12:00:00 AM
The overwhelming demand for more data to maintain a competitive advantage is driving the need for access to clean, usable data from anywhere.
Earlier this year, we attended Google Cloud Next 2022 and shared reactions to their predictions for 2023 and beyond. Now, as the year comes to a close, we’re revisiting those predictions and adding other thoughts about the coming year in the external data industry.
This isn’t to say that DataOps teams won’t grow, as they must grow to scale with your business growth. However, end-to-end integration solutions like Crux will augment the workload of your data engineers, allowing those teams to shift large portions of their time from tedious maintenance work to value-add tasks that lead to new insights. Additionally, in today’s job market, talented employees are harder to come by, and expenses increase with headcount because of costs associated with recruiting, onboarding, and retaining that talent. Augmenting your current team and scaling over time is a more stable and effective solution that will gain popularity in 2023.
This has started to happen voluntarily, and more committees are formed to target ESG data standardization, and the logical outcome is a resolution yielding some standards. Whether they’re around formatting data, reporting it, or something else entirely has yet to be determined. Still, it’s clear that this is a huge headache for data consumers, and solving it would be a great step toward environmental change. Easier access leads to wider adoption, which is critical for ESG data specifically since its adoption drives positive change.
No- and low-code platforms aren’t new technology solutions but are new for third-party data consumption. Currently, most data requires complex technical skills to access and even more skills to parse through and glean insights. Low-code solutions for external data consumption promote accessibility, and so much is waiting to be discovered in the folds. Solutions that simplify complex processes are the ultimate goal regardless of the process. Using Canva for graphic design is a great example of this, and that easy access is beneficial across any industry.
Data mesh is often interchangeably used with data fabric, but they are not quite the same. Data fabric addresses the complexity of modern data architectures and provides a much-needed layer of abstraction to make it easier for DevOps teams to manage data workloads. Data mesh is an evolution of the same concept but is a new approach focusing on data ownership and governance.
Paola Saibene, a principal consultant at IT advisory firm Resultant, summarizes it nicely in a recent CIO article:
“Mesh enables an organization to draw the information and insights it needs from the environment in its current state without having to radically change it or massively disrupt it. This way, CIOs can take advantage of [tools] they already have, but add a layer on top that allows them to make use of all those assets in a modern and fast way.”
We’re already seeing this in 2022, from Google Cloud Marketplace to Snowflake Sharing to AWS Clean Rooms. Cloud providers are developing and selling their data marketplaces and products as demand grows. These solutions are great for accessibility and sharing and are critical for making third-party data more usable. But it’s important to know the difference between these offerings to ensure you aren’t leaving yourself with gaps in your external data pipeline.
Cloud management is poised to become a key driver of business agility, velocity, and resilience. This means it becomes integral to an enterprise's business strategy and core competencies. Data cloud management is such a large concept that it also is worthy of its own predictions. Still, the overall takeaway is that your cloud provider can and will be a crucial piece of your business infrastructure, not just for data.
This prediction dovetails nicely with the one above. Cloud adoption is not avoidable any longer for those still holding out. We predict that an increasing number of legacy applications will migrate to cloud-native architectures and will drive an explosion of opportunities to monetize core business data by packaging and exchanging external data products between market participants. Data producers and consumers' core challenges are common exchange formats and patterns, data model inconsistency, and data observability.
We already see this with companies targeting data observability, transformations, entity matching resolution, and other specific challenges. The critical paradigm is providing a world-class solution to a particular job and successfully integrating it into the overall cloud ecosystem.
Just in case it wasn’t crystal clear in our other predictions, we’re reiterating that not having a cloud service will no longer be an option. Legacy on-prem solutions will be upgraded to maintain compatibility with other necessary solutions integrated and upgraded within the current business architecture. If you’re still on the fence about if you really need a cloud solution, just think back to how people first felt about emails, yet how critical they are to today’s business workflows.
Last but not least–and arguably the least surprising prediction–is that external data isn’t slowing down. As more and more datasets, suppliers, and use cases arise, the demand for data consumption will grow across verticals in your business. Sales, marketing, finance, and human resources may even need specialized data analysts to keep up with the exponential growth in demand for a competitive edge that only grows as third-party data accessibility becomes easier.
If you’re looking for more insights on what 2023 might bring, check out our latest External Data University newsletter on LinkedIn and subscribe.
Here are the ten predictions:
Scout is a Content Marketing Manager at Crux. She has worked in tech startups almost exclusively and writes everything from social media to full reports. She's an Ohio native who loves to binge the latest series or read thriller novels in her free time.
Supplier Spotlights highlight Crux's partners and shine a light on their unique data product offerings.
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