Gartner released the latest research on data and analytics (D&A) strategy and operations at the recent 2024 Greater China Executive Exchange Conference. Gartner predicts that by 2026, over 50% of commercial enterprises will begin their official journey of data monetization. By 2025, 55% of IT departments will adopt a data ecosystem to integrate 40% of suppliers, thereby reducing costs while reducing choices. By 2026, generative D&A that can automatically generate closed-loop D&A results will account for 20% of the D&A expenses of large enterprises.

Fei Tianqi, senior chief analyst of Gartner, said: "Today, the concept of data middleground has entered the low point of the foam burst in Gartner's technology maturity curve, and its popularity in the market has gradually declined. As the concept of data middleground has gradually faded, enterprises and institutions must reconsider their D&A plans."

Figure 1: Evolution process of data center



The D&A focus of enterprises is shifting from government policies to data monetization

Data has become one of the most valuable assets in society. In the past year, China has launched several groundbreaking measures related to data, including the "Twenty Data Measures", the "Overall Layout Plan for Digital China Construction", and the establishment of the National Data Bureau.

In 2020, the State Council of China officially listed data as the "fifth largest factor of production" after land, labor, capital, and technology; In 2023, China began promoting the entry of data assets into the balance sheet. All these unprecedented measures indicate that China has high expectations for data monetization.

Fei Tianqi said, "Enterprise institutions can monetize data through internal/indirect or external/direct channels. At the same time, enterprises must improve their data governance capabilities and apply product management practices to ensure that data assets and services have good organization and tradability, in order to realize value."

Figure 2: Data monetization value chain



The D&A investment of enterprises requires demonstrable and verifiable business value

D&A is the area where most Chinese CIOs have increased their investment the most in 2023. However, under the impact of slowing economic growth and pressure from companies to reduce costs and increase efficiency, the overall IT budget of Chinese companies has declined. Many executives have begun to validate and even measure the demonstrable value of their D&A investments.

Fei Tianqi stated, "In an environment full of uncertainty and challenges, the D&A department needs to go beyond the data center that still only focuses on data technology, and demonstrate the support role of D&A for business goals through value stories, in order to articulate its strategic value.". Data can only demonstrate its measurable value when applied in specific scenarios that can create value. Therefore, D&A leaders should not only emphasize D&A goals, but also make executives and business leaders the protagonists in the D&A value story, and the latter should become the best advocates and supporters in the D&A process

Enterprise institutions are exploring adaptive D&A operation models to balance centralization and decentralization methods

From the perspective of enterprise architecture, hybrid D&A "integrated teams" should become the norm. A centralized IT or data team should empower and drive domain level analytical practices, rather than simply accepting D&A requests. This requires investment in establishing data roles in different fields, training and empowering talents to meet the analysis needs at the domain level.

Fei Tianqi said, "More importantly, the centralized team needs to be responsible for designing and guiding top-down data governance and collaboration, as well as managing and governing data assets/products. When users are confused about data standards, data quality, or any other data related issues, the central team will provide assistance."

Emerging technologies such as GenAl will be integrated into the next generation of D&A technology

In China, artificial intelligence (AI) has been regarded by Chief Information Officers (CIOs) as the primary technology to change the rules of the game. 95% of surveyed companies and institutions stated that AI is the most likely technology to be implemented before 2026.

Fei Tianqi said, "Starting from 2023, GenAI will become the ruler of the AI world.". In the post data center era, AI has made the D&A industry more intelligent and automated. AI ready data is not only the driving force for the success of GenAl models, but also a necessary condition for realizing the value of AI models

Efficient data management capability is the fundamental guarantee for achieving AI, and on the other hand, AI capabilities will also be more integrated into the new generation of data management concepts, which can achieve data management automation, optimize data governance and orchestration, simplify processes, and provide intelligent insights. This change will bring benefits to employees and business users across multiple data related positions. Native developers and consumers of AI will have a profound impact on the D&A process of enterprises.