Alteryx is a Business Reporter client. As organizations prepare to navigate the coming years, operating in a constantly changing landscape will continue to challenge business leaders worldwide. But no matter what the future brings, data-driven decision-making will remain the lifeblood of tomorrow’s businesses. It will have a profound impact on decisions, bringing the insights needed to provide innovations that drive unique experiences and customer growth.
AI is already transcending its hype status to become a generator of business value, and organizations of all sizes are adopting it, especially generative AI, to stay ahead in today’s fast-paced world. But this AI movement is also a driver of significant technological change that is yet to come – rapid transformations destined to shape how future businesses operate and perform.
This is why business leaders are turning to CIOs and IT leaders for insights and to discover business preparedness strategies to ensure that their organizations can take advantage of current and future AI capabilities.
Why data means increasing value for business
With global data creation projected to grow to over 180 zettabytes by 2025, there is enormous potential value in becoming a data-driven business. But, for this, a technology stack built for the intelligence era is required.
While current organizations have a strong appetite for AI and automation, the reality is that vast volumes of data and numerous data pipelines are at the core of these technologies. CIOs and IT leaders are already evaluating the necessary technologies to transform data-driven decision-making approaches and in a future where generative AI is expected to be deeply integrated into all facets of business, this has become critical.
The role of technology in shaping the business of the future is undeniable. The exponential growth of data in all enterprises and the constantly changing business landscape suggest that AI-driven automation will continue to be a fundamental feature of future businesses. Alteryx research reveals that 60 percent of business leaders say that technology investment will have a transformative impact on future productivity and 61 percent say that investments in advanced technology will increase as they respond to the changing market environment. The challenge is to transform these growing volumes and varieties of data into business opportunities, preparing us for this increasingly complex and data-driven future.
Forward-thinking IT leaders already see a direct correlation between modernizing the data management journey across the technology stack and facilitating the extraction of value from data at the speed and scale required for real-time intelligence. The same Alteryx research suggests that digital transformation related to AI and machine learning will be the number one feature of the business of the future, and technology stack priorities are already changing to reflect this. Generative AI, quantum computing, and machine learning operations (MLOps) are cited as the technologies most likely to see the greatest accelerated adoption in the future.
Offering next-generation business transformation ready for AI
Although it seems like a short time since the pandemic forced many organizations to accelerate their transformations at dizzying speeds, the rise of AI-related technologies will reinject these transformations. Why? Because AI has lowered the barrier to gaining productivity gains, providing data-based insights with just a phrase or a warning. With numerous data-driven AI technologies and smart systems already available, the ultimate goal of this transformation is to modernize the data management journey across the stack.
To do this, technology leaders, more than ever, need to be change agents capable of prioritizing both the technical needs of IT and the business needs – while ensuring that none of the connected systems and technologies disrupt the value chain or create friction.
No one-size-fits-all technology can help companies understand customer needs, increase efficiency, and find the competitive advantage their organizations need. For any technology to accelerate data flow across the future technology stack, you must:
1. Avoid overly complex architectures and tools that require specific skill sets. Only by empowering the entire workforce to make the most of technologies to harness and compute data and establish available automation capabilities, will you unlock the full potential of the future technology stack and ensure that it delivers ROI, generating business value across the organization.
2. Learn to identify interesting and bright trends that may look good, but don’t work and avoid buying a package of tools not designed for corporate users. If it disrupts the value chain and creates friction because a part of the technology stack breaks or lacks a capability in the value chain, then it causes friction for everything else – costing money, time, and potential innovation.
3. Invest in platforms that support multiple personas, unlimited use cases, and resource expansion – all essential for reducing costs, driving ROI and future-proof investments.
4. Look for AI-ready and future-ready platforms with data quality, security, and governance mechanisms that IT needs. Provide an accessible AI and NLP interface to enable everyone to start data quality checks that identify potential anomalies, easily transform and standardize data based on data quality rules, and securely provide the insights the company needs to make quick and secure decisions – sometimes in a fraction of a second.
At Alteryx, we continue to infuse AI innovation into the Alteryx Analytics Cloud Platform through Iodine, to support multiple personas, unlimited use cases, and future resource expansion. Our innovative multimodal approach to AI-driven analytics allows each person to leverage their preferred tool to develop collaborative analytical insights in real-time, from chat prompts to code-free workflows and Python and SQL code-compatible notebooks. All of this can be translated live by generative AI into a single analytics solution that enables data outcomes across the enterprise at scale.
Learn more about how the Alteryx Analytics Cloud Platform provides the data orchestration layer for 49% of Global 2000 companies – ensuring that businesses have the analytics, IT governance, and security needed to accommodate growing data, automation, and generative AI demands.
Trevor Schulze, Chief Information Officer, Alteryx
As Chief Information Officer of Alteryx, Schulze leads the global IT team in delivering a comprehensive portfolio of business-led technology solutions and services. He works to inspire global teams to imagine and execute creative solutions to tough business problems and successfully capitalize on new market opportunities. His focus is on transforming business through innovative operational and technological initiatives and bringing award-winning products to market.
Prior to joining Alteryx, Schulze served as Chief Information Officer of RingCentral, leading a multinational team responsible for setting the company’s strategic direction and reimagining its business processes to support business growth and profitability goals.