3 Ways the Database Revolution Has Changed Business

The past decade has seen profound changes in the data world. The process of storing and querying unthinkably huge amounts of data has become cheap, fast, and easy. But just because companies can use big data, doesn’t mean they know what to do with all this newfound power.

Buying a 400hp sports car doesn’t do you much good if you’re driving on the same sleepy country road as before. And it can actually be detrimental if you don’t know how to handle all that power.

Because the hype cycle, as usual, has gotten ahead of the reality, lots of people have been talking “Big Data” without actually realizing much value from the data they’re storing.

Thankfully, that’s all beginning to change. More and more companies are finding new and exciting ways to leverage their investments in modern data warehouses. An interesting thing to note about the three big shifts driving this transformation is that all of them involve technology, but are fundamentally driven by human skills.

The first big shift is that more and more companies are moving past historical data analysis. Data isn’t just used in the rear-view mirror.

This means providing near-real-time data access that helps employees do their jobs better.

For most of its history, business intelligence was entirely backward looking. You’d make a decision, wait for it to have an impact, and then examine the data to see its effect. But as faster databases and more efficient data pipelines have become the norm, the smartest companies have shifted to new ways of working.

Now they can put the right data in the right hands at the right time so that it actually informs the decision, rather than just providing retrospective feedback on how the decision turned out. It’s the difference between being able to map current traffic and being able to reroute around a traffic jam.

The second shift is driven directly by the first: the death of the HiPPO. HiPPO is an acronym for the Highest Paid Person’s Opinion, and until recently, that was the primary way that decisions were made in the enterprise.

Now, rather than spending the meeting trying to convince the boss that you’re right, you can bring your analysis and respond to questions and challenges in real time. If someone wants to dig deeper into the analysis that led to your conclusions, you can do that in real time, rather than telling them you’ll get back to them.