Survey Says: Cloud Analytics is Future of Computing

Datavail is always looking for ways to improve our services to enhance our customers’ enterprise experience.

Our data management, application development, database and analytics services are popular because of our company’s extensive experience, expertise and stellar reputation for exceptional support in these offerings. Utilizing our technical tools and professional insights, hundreds of global clients have mastered the collection, management, and leverage of their proprietary information. But do they need more?

Recently, our leaders were considering ways regarding how our customers and prospects may be better served from a data analytics perspective, and wanted to explore how, if at all, our clients have embraced cloud analytics as a corporate tool. We conducted a survey by partnering with an independent third-party surveyor to learn more. The results are fascinating and have helped to inform Datavail leadership about our company’s next steps to improve our analytics services and solutions for our clients. Moreover, we hope our customers and prospects glean useful value-added information and insights from the results of our research regarding their own analytics endeavors.

Highlights of Datavail’s Cloud Analytics Maturity Survey

1. Who’s Using or Plans to Use Cloud Analytics

The most significant revelation from the survey is that 100% of participants indicated that a cloud-based analytics service was definitely on their to-do list or they were already in the process of that migration. No one said they weren’t contemplating the migration at some point in time.

Of those already engaging in cloud-based analytics, only 13% of respondents were all-in in the cloud, while half were straddling a hybrid configuration of part-cloud, part-on-prem.

2. The Benefits They’re Experiencing (So Far)

Prudent business leaders base their investment decisions on how those maneuvers will benefit the company. As Datavail customers, survey respondents already know that cloud computing systems are constantly updated with current technology and easily outpace the performance of on-prem systems, which is why investments in cloud assets are becoming more attractive to leaders in companies of all sizes. That elevated performance capacity facilitates the processes needed by both new and established organizations to remain competitive in today’s hyper-extended global economy.

The Datavail Cloud Analytics survey revealed several business benefits that users can expect or are already experiencing:

• Almost two-thirds of the group (62%) see improved scalability as the best gain from their cloud analytics migration. Scaling corporate assets extends markets and revenues but requires time and attention to keep the process running well. Cloud analytics can help identify where, how, and what could be scaled, and the cloud-based autoscaling capacity ensures consistency and accuracy.
• More than half expect or are experiencing faster deployments of their apps because the analytics gets them to that stage faster. Because analytics can inform and guide both the launch and direction of new projects, it reduces the time needed to make adjustments before sending the new app into the world.
• A full 50% are getting or looking for improved systems performance overall.

Almost one-third (31%) of respondents want or now have enhanced security systems. Cloud analytics capacities are unmatched for their depth, breadth, and scope:

• They search for and detect internal anomalies before they become problems. These challenges can be anything from failing hardware that creates bottlenecks to potential insider fraud.
• They facilitate a higher level of regulatory compliance because they integrate data from all relevant regulatory bodies and give users a single view of all data events pertinent to those concerns. Monitoring the system is therefore much easier, and because the cloud analytics platform is constantly updated, the compliance programming will also update as regulations change.

Over one-third of respondents (34%) cited cost savings as a significant benefit for moving their analytics to the cloud. Saving money means paying less for services you’ve already embraced. Cloud analytics provide the insights you need to know where you can adjust the services your organization needs to reduce their cost without losing their value.

This ‘benefits’ discussion among current and future cloud analytics users emphasizes how individual companies use (or will use) their cloud analytics investments to improve their company’s productivity, based on its status at the beginning of the analytics journey.

3. The Future They’re Planning to Achieve with Cloud Analytics

This part of the survey asked for narrative responses, and Datavail’s customers provided a wide range of insights and aspirations for their current and future cloud analytics investments.

Data Integration
Not surprising was their enthusiasm for data integration

• from an unknowable number of disparate systems;
• that cleans and ‘normalizes’ all data into relevant use cases;
• and provides a ‘single version of truth’ to the entire organization through standardized reports and dashboards.

Many suggested their analytics would key off their KPIs, while others looked to compliances and production values as the drivers of their data integration hopes and dreams.

Asset and Market Forecasting
Survey respondents are leaders in many different sectors, so their use of data (and its analysis) reflects those priorities. Many cited the need to better track the influences on past market swings as possible predictors of future market movements. Others would look to the analysis to identify where they can save money within their production lines or which products they should shelve.

Corporate Security
Respondents shared their preference for enhancing cloud analytics to address a range of security concerns.

• Internally, data trails would flawlessly track enterprise-wide data flows and the users who access those. The cloud capacity would also ease data access transitions when personnel join or exit the organization, change roles, or shift from department to department.
• Also internally, cloud-driven alerts would keep company systems on track by notifying users when programming is down, bottlenecks occur, or intrusions happen.
• Outside the company, data analytics will also ease and monitor connections between suppliers and other third-party partners. In too many cases, organizations lose money or market because of their contractors’ lax or absent security standards. Cloud analytics systems can track and monitor those activities too.

Datavail’s Cloud Analytics Survey revealed a host of insights and comprehensions about how the business world intends to capitalize on these emerging and exciting assets and opportunities. Perhaps they reflect some of your thoughts about cloud analytics for your organization?

For a comprehensive overview of the field of cloud analytics download our white paper “Journey to Cloud Analytics: Using the Cloud to Solve Your Analytics Challenges”.