The change in analytics technologies has been rapid and broad. There’s no doubt that the current array of analytical technologies is more powerful and less expensive than the previous generation. It enables companies to store and analyze both far more data and many different types of it. Analyses and recommendations come much faster, approaching real time in many cases. In short, all analytical boats have risen.
With internet of things data becoming popular in many industries, analyzing data near the source will become increasingly important, particularly in remote geographies where telecommunications constraints might limit centralization of data.
These new tools are also more complex and in many cases require higher levels of expertise to work with. As analytics has grown in importance over the last decade, the commitments that organizations must make to excel with it have also grown. Because so many companies have realized that analytics are critical to their business success, new technologies haven’t necessarily made it easier to become — and remain — an analytical competitor. Using state-of-the-art analytical technologies is a prerequisite for success, but their widespread availability puts an increasing premium on nontechnical factors like analytical leadership, culture, and strategy.
Thomas H. Davenport. How Analytics Has Changed in the Last 10 Years (and How It’s Stayed the Same). June 22, 2017. The Harvard Business Review.