Cloud and the future of work

Transformation is inevitable. CDOs who can build a factory of data products and bring value in digital transformation to their shifting businesses will be heroes. They will be the people who extend an olive branch to technical audiences because data products cannot be built without technical support. The CDO will have a dual role in their company, fostering a good relationship with IT and as well as mastering those new data architectures.

Cloud and the Future of Work

We’ll be seeing a lot more fragmentation of offices -- whether it’s home offices, smaller offices, or temporary offices -- making online tools and online collaboration even more important. The cloud is the perfect infrastructure to facilitate this new way of working. No matter where you’re physically located, the cloud gives you access to everything you need from your regular networks to email to office needs to storage, databases, and data warehouses. You don’t need to worry about how to access these services anymore. All you need is a service, similar to having access to electricity everywhere or water everywhere.

Hybrid Cloud and Multi-Cloud

We will continue to see the hybrid cloud and multi-cloud. Why will we continue to see hybrids? Don't look at what is changing; look at what is not changing. And what is not changing is that companies cannot just move everything into the cloud in a heartbeat. This will take them years, even if they’re fully behind the initiative. For that reason, you will continue to see hybrids. We are headed into a future where on-premise is seen as a legacy.

Multi-cloud will also continue because of the ongoing war between Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Big companies will continue to have multiple vendors. Why? Microsoft is omnipresent; almost everybody has Microsoft because of Windows and Office. Microsoft will come in with their cloud services - it’s inevitable. AWS has been very successful at establishing a landing in many organizations because it was the first in the cloud. However, some businesses don’t like AWS because they see Amazon as competition. Google has strength in AI and data processing and has been very successful here. I don’t predict that in the next few years we’ll see a winner in this race.

Data Silos

In the industry, we often talk about breaking down data silos, but we should acknowledge that some silos will always be there. In large organizations, you will always have local departments or regions that have their own tools or databases, and that will continue. If you have data sovereignty, that local officials in your organization will have a silo. That's why the best approach is to look at how you can have a better understanding of the data you have. A data intelligence platform can serve as your index and your map, showing you the silos you have and how they are connected by providing a 360-degree view of data assets.