Tech Insights: Interview with Grant Christian, Information Builders

In our new Tech Insights series, we quiz industry leaders to get their views of what the year ahead holds for the IT world. Today we speak with Grant Christian, Country Manager, Information Builders.

What do you see as the single biggest challenge facing the ICT industry in the year ahead, and why?

The explosion and availability of data requires new thought as to how to govern it and how to make it available to various users within the organisation and externally. Companies rightly see their data as an asset and therefore need to ensure that it is secured and accurate.

Ensuring that data is integrated in a way that it can be accessed in real time from any device and multiple applications is key. The data must also be accurate, meaning that data quality and master data management should be in place to provide a ‘single view’ of data. In addition, data access should be flexible - managers should be able to use dashboards, analysts’ data discovery tools, and operational employees’ and customers’ easy-to-use information apps.

What do you see as the two or three biggest growth opportunities for your customers in 2015, and why?

Our customers have been using their data internally for operational decision-making and reporting, and some have also been leveraging their data for use externally. We see this trend continuing, in terms of customers utilising their data to realise new revenue streams.

The second trend is to provide self-service analytics to everyone. We are going past analytics being used by managers and analysts/power users; front-line workers now also demand access to information, but these users do not want to learn complex tools, nor do they need to understand the underlying data model.

What emerging trends or developing technologies may influence or change the way the ICT industry will do business in 2015, and why?

As mentioned above, the continued explosion data from sources such as the Internet of Things will continue to change how the ICT industry does business. More and more devices are being implemented with sensors - collecting data, sharing data, etc. All of this data will need to be incorporated into a proper data management infrastructure and will also need to be incorporated into analytics platforms and associated business processes. Again, new business opportunities also lie in this data.

What new and innovative technologies do you see emerging in your IT solution categories in 2015, and how will they help your customers?

Bringing data and analytics together is providing some great new technology trends: wearables at work - smartwatches, smart glasses, etc; DevOps - the blending of development and operations together within IT; and smart machines - the Internet of Things will continue to drive a new range of devices with sensors and also likely intelligence.

What are your customers demanding of you more today than five years ago, and how will you meet these requirements in 2015?

Customers are demanding expertise on project implementation and improved ‘time to live’ with their projects; gone are the days of long project timelines with large resource pools. With the growing data volumes, customers are also expecting analytical products to have real depth, be able to connect to multiple data sources, be able to provide a strong level of data quality and to support the business’s real-time decision-making experience across multiple users.

Grant Christian is the Country Manager for Information Builders and is a highly experienced leader with 25-plus years in the manufacturing and information technology fields.