The unprecedented rise in volume and variety of business data in the recent years has necessitated better Data Management practices across all business sectors. Data Management trends in 2018 will continue to revolve around Data Governance, which ensures enhanced Data Quality leading to improved decision making. As streaming data continues to flow from diverse data channels, Enterprise Data Governance teams are gearing up to examine and evaluate their internal frameworks and Data Architectures to ensure better Data Management.

The continued growth of the enterprise Data Management market has been triggered by the increased demand for better Data Governance in global organizations. Good Data Governance requires many different types of applications to work together in a seamless manner.

Data Management in 2018: The General Trends

The predicted technology trends for 2018 indicate that the “intelligent digital mesh” will soon be adopted by many businesses, whether fully or partially digital in nature. The rapid adoption of “everything digital” and AI-enabled technologies will soon be apparent in business ecosystems across the world. In the next five years, AI technology adoption in businesses will be a major battleground. The AI trends that are gradually transforming existing business models will deliver large payoffs by 2025.

According to the Forbes article titled Why the Convergence of Two Trends Will Alter the Way Businesses Manage Data, Data Security and Data Governance issues have started converging to reduce the risks associated with enterprise data. As these two trends work towards a common goal, the businesses will have to adopt more efficient data collection, Data Management, and Data Security platforms. For example, specific travel service providers will be placed under increased scrutiny on customer data privacy. Organizations of all sizes are busy implementing GSPR strategies to protect their premium asset – “business data.”

In Gartner’s Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2018, readers can view the discussion on event processing and continuous adaptive risk and trust assessment (CARTA), which will be a part 80 percent of businesses by 2020 to enable real-time decision management based on risk assessment and trust.

All About Data Protection: General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

This is about to happen real soon. While the basic operating principles of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) are akin to those of Data Protection Act (DPA), it will transform Data Management trends and practices in businesses far into the future. Elizabeth Denham, the UK’s information commissioner feels that businesses across the globe should learn to deal with the unnecessary “threat” of GDPR Laws, as they are just a step forward from existing data protection laws. The article titled GDPR Will Change Data Protection – Here’s What You Need to Know talks about UK’s GDPR framework, which is designed to “harmonize” data privacy throughout UK. Under GDPR, every country will be monitored by an indigenous regulatory authority, and any disclosure, modification, or destruction of peoples’ data will be reported to this regulatory body.

1. GDPR puts more obligations on data collection agencies.
2. GDPR promises increased data access to individuals whose data has been compromised in any manner.
3. Under GDPR, data collection agencies have to take permission from individuals before sharing their data.

The Telegraph article titled European Data Protection Laws are Changing claims that personal data regulation will be enforced in 2018 and businesses need to start preparing now to face the transition from DPA to GDPR next year. The Data Management trends in 2018 seem to indicate that by 2025, 180 Zettabytes of data will be produced annually. This forecast hints at the growth of Big Data and advanced Data Analytics markets with newer platforms and tools becoming available for improved Data Management.

The new focus will be Data Quality through governance, not data quantity.

Data Storage Trends in 2018

Here are the trends predicted for data storage practices in 2018:

1. Flash revenues will remain high in 2018, as the transfer-technology continues to improve while the price falls. Reliable Flash storage will result in less reliance on servers.
2. Flash memory technologies will be upgraded to boost system performance.
3. The sudden spike in the Flash market in 2018 may lead to acute raw materials shortages. Businesses are advised to take the necessary steps to start early acquisitions to avoid the serious supply crunch later.
4. A counter-trend of in-built storage in machines such as those sold by HCL. With HCL or Dell, customers may find storage directly built in the hardware infrastructure removing the need for separate storage devices.
5. The “five-click analytics solutions will be built in storage systems for users to quickly identify and resolve problems.
6. Emergence of Software-defined storage (SDS) to reduce data duplication and increase storage efficiency. Read about “hyper-converged infrastructure” in the article below.
7. Mixed Cloud storage solutions – mix of public and private Cloud storage systems will boost storage efficiency while reducing the risk of data loss.

Read more about the top data storage trends 2018 in Top 5 Storage Trends for 2018: What You Should Know.

Data Monetization with Big Data

As enterprises have realized that “data” is their most prized asset, they are now considering leveraging technologies like Big Data to monetize that asset. As companies continue to gather huge troves of device data, network data, or customer behavior data – they are now thinking of turning this data into a profitable revenue earner through advanced Big Data technologies associated with data acquisition, storage, analysis, and deployment. The advanced customer analytics possible due to Big Data will hopefully enhance revenue generation for businesses in future. Read the KD Nugget article titled How will Big Data Companies Monetize Data in 2018? to get the full story.

The author of the DATAVERSITY^® article titled Five Things to Consider on the Road to Data Monetization develops the concept of Big Data monetization further by pointing out that data applications vendors like Reltio enables enhanced Data Visualization and Data Analytics by removing some of the time and efforts wasted in MDM, So, service providers can use these platforms to offer  Data-as-a-Service (DaaS), which is another source of Big Data monetization.

Big Data Privacy Practices in 2018

1. Big Data will pose a major privacy threat in 2018 due to the wide variety of inflow channels.
2. The Cloud vendors will be vetted before they are commissioned for Big Data projects.
3. The use of Private Cloud, in spite of high costs, may still be preferred by businesses because of the relative safety of the data.
4. Big Data Governance within departmental silos will increase to ensure that the appropriate data privacy levels are met.

Review the following article from to understand the urgency of the above Big Data Privacy Practices in 2018: 6 Big Data Privacy Practices Every Company Should Adopt in 2018

Digital Marketing Trends in 2018

One of the most valuable portions of an enterprise’s data assets is customer data. Business users will notice these dominant trends in the use of digital marketing to manage customer data in 2018:

1. Increased use of AI-enabled solutions for marketing analytics.
2. Machine Learning-guided customer analytics tools for customer segmentation.
3. Rise of content marketing as a core differentiator in marketing strategies.
4. Rise of IoT Analytics for understanding the customer.

The article titled 7 Major Digital Marketing Trends For 2018 suggests content marketing will be at the forefront of business activities in 2018, which will be primarily used to personalize the customer experience. Businesses believe that customers retain that “perception of a Brand” in their memories what they view or read through smart content.

Database Management in 2018

The complex data ecosystem comprising of Big Data, the Cloud, social, mobile, and other unstructured data has made it necessary for database vendors to add nifty features like “making graphs of data” to make Master Data Management (MDM) more friendly. The integration of social or Big data with MDM will facilitate better “360-degree view of the customer” The article titled Contemporary Trends in Master Data Management explains this in detail. Still struggling with database migration to the Cloud? Review DATAVERSITY^®’s Managing Databases in the Cloud: What You Need to Know to aid any planned migration process. The aim of this article is to let you know the typical migration services that Cloud service providers offer to make the transition smooth and cost friendly.

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