The effects of disconnected data are many: lack of data-driven decision making, inaccurate information, and slower processes, to name just a few. When you quantify the total cost of data silos, you’ll find that organizations have a lot to lose.
While many data silo statistics predict a gloomy future where organizations struggle to unite their enterprise data, new approaches to data management, like data fabric, can help. In this post, we’ll take a look at three trends in data, what they indicate about the cost of data silos, and what they mean for the future of data management.
1. Spending on data management is growing rapidly.
Spending on data management has significantly increased over the past several years. Last year alone, data management accounted for $41.1 billion, making it the largest portion of IT infrastructure spending, according to research from IDC. And this trend will likely continue as data proliferates, regulatory compliance expands, and the demand for data-driven insights grows.
This indicates that more organizations are recognizing the cost of data silos—which can hinder collaboration, impede analysis, and lead to higher long-term costs—and the need to strategically invest in data management.
2. More data is being processed outside of data centers and the cloud.
According to Gartner® Insights, Modernize Data and Analytics Capabilities, “By 2025, more than 50% of enterprise-critical data will be created and processed outside the data center or cloud.”
McKinsey listed edge computing as a 2022 technology trend, saying that in the future, networks “will consist of devices at many locations computing simultaneously.” The rise of edge computing highlights how data trends can change rapidly and emphasizes the need for a more unified data management strategy that can connect your data wherever it lives.
Data fabric can play a crucial role in edge computing by providing a unified view of data across distributed environments. It provides a layer of abstraction that allows organizations to integrate and manage data from various sources, including the cloud, edge devices, databases, and other systems, in a cohesive and unified manner. This helps address the challenges of data fragmentation and mitigate the cost of data silos.
3. Business users are becoming technologists.
“Who are business technologists? They are employees who build technology or analytics capabilities for internal and external business use, but exist outside of IT departments. It’s a strategic role that equips and empowers non-IT resources to build digital capabilities. According to Gartner research, 41% of employees can be described as business technologists,” as Gartner states, The Rise of Business Technologists, March 29, 2022.
While empowering your business users to own and manage their own tech has its benefits, the rise of business technologists can actually contribute to the creation of data silos within organizations. This can occur as business users build and maintain their own solutions and data management practices.
That’s where a data fabric (and a good data governance framework) can help. Data virtualization is a key component of a data fabric. It allows business technologists to access and work with data from various sources without physically moving or duplicating the data. This virtualization approach eliminates the need for creating additional silos and provides a unified and virtualized view of data, regardless of its location or format.
Solving your data silo problems with a data fabric.
Gartner estimates that “by 2024, data fabric deployments will quadruple efficiency in data utilization, while cutting human-driven data management tasks in half.” That’s good news for organizations looking to proactively manage their data silo problem.
Appian’s data fabric creates an intelligent digital enterprise with a 360° view of enterprise data. With low-code controls, Appian democratizes access to data and accelerates application development. The resulting applications drive better outcomes through informed, data-driven decision making.
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