The data integration and analytics space is undergoing a significant evolution, making the recent QlikWorld event in Las Vegas a timely opportunity to hear from industry experts and companies about where they see the industry headed next.

Enterprises are shifting from an application-centric model — that is, having data locked within an app — to one where the business logic and metadata will reside on top of the data, according to theCUBE industry analyst Dave Vellante.

“That’s what data-first means to me. And that’s a brave new world,” he said. “I have no doubt that a company like [QlikTech] … is going to get there. Some things have to be invented.”

To learn more about recent technological advances in this space, Vellante and theCUBE industry analyst Lisa Martin talked with industry experts and QlikTech International AB executives during SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio theCUBE’s coverage of the event. 

They also discussed how other companies could best activate data to make better decisions and improve revenue. (* Disclosure below.) 

Here are three key insights you may have missed:

1. There’s an ongoing dialogue around data modernization.

There’s a data revolution taking place across industries, and the data analytics landscape is changing. By 2025, it’s estimated that more than 50% of enterprise-critical data will be created and processed outside the data center or cloud, according to estimates from Gartner Inc.

Companies are increasingly relying on real-time data. Ford Motor Co., for instance, is streaming data live from vehicles to inform customers that they need to undertake specific tasks, such as oil changes.

To keep up with the evolving enterprise computing landscape, Qlik has made 10 acquisitions over the past five years to add data integration, data quality, artificial intelligence and machine learning to its platform, according to Mike Capone, chief executive officer of Qlik.

Two of the most notable acquisitions were data integration solutions provider Attunity Inc., acquired in 2019, and data management firm Talend Inc., acquired this year.

“We’re going to set you up. Everything’s going to be there for you. [So it’s] anticipating customer needs,” Capone said during an interview with theCUBE. “How do we leverage data, not the old way — which is locked up in old databases of data warehouses — but the new way?” 

That new way is real time to improve the experiences of employees and customers, according to Capone, adding that is what customers are saying they want. 

Before ChatGPT, there was a lot of conversation about large language models coming online. The timeline to create has now been compressed. 

During the pandemic, companies were leaning into digital transformation and IT growth was around 6 to 7%, noted Crawford Del Prete, president of International Data Corp. But now, the market has started to rotate.

“Now we’re seeing that companies are focused on a really turbulent, complicated economic environment, which I think is creating a smokescreen,” he said. “But the reality is, companies are still investing. That is why we’re seeing double-digit software growth. This is why we’re seeing exponential growth in data continuing going forward.”

This era of innovation will still be spoken about as the “golden era” of IT decades into the future, according to Del Prete. The key will be the linkage between large language modeling and app-driven business applications.

“When the four of us are at the old folks’ home, we’ll be talking about this as the golden era – this opportunity to build hundreds of millions of applications and get tremendous value from it,” he stated.

Here’s theCUBE’s complete video interview with Mike Capone and Crawford Del Prete:

2. Data analysis can drive major business operations.

Seven years ago, food service provider Aramark Inc. partnered with Qlik, with an eye on serving tens of thousands of fans at sporting events. The company needed real-time, streaming information on what’s going on at games.

“What’s selling, what’s not selling, should we be changing pricing, but they’re also streaming in the weather. They’re streaming in the score of the game,” Capone said. “Are people going to start leaving? Is it really cold?”

All of that real-time information informs the company about specific decisions that need to be made. In the case of a sporting event, a company could determine whether to defrost more hot dogs or whether to make more hot chocolate.

“Then they push pricing changes back dynamically to their point of sale systems to optimize what’s going on in the game. What you’re talking about exists today. They have big command centers, and they see it all in real time,” Capone said.

The pandemic revealed that real-time access to data and insights isn’t just a “nice to have” for organizations in any industry, it’s demanded. What does that look like in practice, and how can companies keep up as they seek to utilize data analysis to drive major business operations?

While data has been around for a long time, the way it’s being leveraged today is new and different, giving companies innovative advantages and insights that didn’t exist before, according to Stewart Bond, research vice president at International Data Corp. (Canada) Ltd.

“We’ve got all these disparate data applications, data functionality that’s all coming together into platforms into suites of products that organizations can then leverage to tackle their data problems,” Bond said.

In terms of how everything might shake out, Bond pointed to the fact that every single hyperscaler is currently working on building its own data intelligence and data integration capabilities.

“Most of them are still focused on that cloud ecosystem,” he said. “They partner with others to bring in the on-premise and the hybrid portion of that. But they’re continuing to make that better.”

Some are talking more about hybrid and potentially even multicloud, according to Bond. The benefit that the independents have is that they are cloud-neutral, are providers with all the cloud providers and can offer that multicloud support for data that needs to move between clouds.

“It is a hybrid world that we are in. The surveys that we do, clearly data is not just in the cloud. It’s not just on premise. It’s everywhere,” he said.

In that increasingly data-centric world, business operations will need to place a greater emphasis on data intelligence while ensuring data remains private and discoverable.

“I think we’re just cracking the surface on that. I think this is an interesting space to watch,” Martin added.

Here’s theCUBE’s complete video interview with Stewart Bond:

3. There’s an effort going on to tap into data-focused tech.

There are companies seeking to take some of the technology provided by Qlik and combine it with some of the emerging trends surrounding generative AI to help customers better sort out their data.

The problem? When it comes to large data shops, oftentimes the data isn’t integrated with a company’s workflows, according to Jai Ganesh (pictured, right), chief product officer of Harman International Industries Inc.

What Harman is doing is building AI-based approaches in an effort to make better sense out of the data, according to Ganesh.

“We are also doing some interesting stuff on the machine learning operations, automating the entire machine learning workflows,” he said.

Of course, strategy and implementation is crucial when it comes to any data discussion, according to Annette Jonker (center), head of data analytics at Harman International. The Harman Digital Transformation Solutions approach is to focus on the data mesh to accelerate speed to insights.

“We’re not trying to boil the ocean or create this very large data warehouse where everything lives,” she said. “We’re only bringing the data that we’re actually going to use into our data mart or data warehouse, which lives within Snowflake today. It’s not limiting the business user while ensuring that these applications are supported within production.”

Here’s theCUBE’s complete video interview with Jai Ganesh, Annette Jonker and Molly Burns (left), vice president of sales and North America partners at Qlik:

To watch more of theCUBE’s coverage of QlikWorld, here’s our complete event video playlist:

(* Disclosure: QlikTech International AB sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Qlik nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE