ISG Provider Lens™ Analytics - Solutions and Service Partners - U.S. 2020 - Data Engineering Services
Four Key Service Capabilities Dominating The Analytics Market
The demand for analytics has not been dampened by the looming pandemic but rather has necessitated adopting such relevant services and solutions. In their efforts to sustain business and survive the impact of COVID-19, business leaders have turned to analytics among other investment priorities. Increasingly, businesses are assessing their decisions and relying on strong scientific and statistical approaches to strategize growth as well as operational initiatives. Enterprises are adopting analytical approaches to tackle top-line and bottom-line growth challenges and are seeking transformational partners in service providers capable of offering end-to-end data analytics capabilities. Although most organizations have already been using data analytics in some form, several lacked the necessary skill set and expertise to deploy a holistic strategy for better managing their data. Like other transformational projects, data analytics follows a sequence of consulting, architecture and design, infrastructure and integration and finally maintenance and support. Drawing parallels to this approach, the following services have been identified to generate significant market demand: Data Science, Data Engineering, Infrastructure and Cloud Integration and Data Lifecycle Management.
Largest market for analytics: The U.S. has been identified as the largest market for data analytics, given the propensity of many organizations investing in these services and solutions. The market witnessed several large-scale projects that were typically transformational leveraging analytics at the core of the project. Aside from the large number of projects, the U.S. also is home to many service providers playing in the analytics market. From a revenue perspective, a majority of the service providers reported more than 15 percent of their revenue being generated from the U.S. market.
Banking, financial, retail and health care: Service providers reported end-user organizations from the banking, financial and health care verticals have generated more demand for analytics services compared with other industries. While the predominant focus of these organizations was to solve issues centered on customer experience, business process and operational challenges are also becoming key focus areas for investing in analytics services.
Increased focus on acquisitions: Large and midsize service providers have been focusing on several acquisitions to enhance their portfolios of offerings as well as expansion into new regions and industries. Service providers have been focusing on gaining specific IPs that would help their analytics expertise and complement their existing portfolios. some service providers have been going to analytics vendors with unique propositions for niche industries and segments.
Forging partnerships to gain momentum: The market is also witnessing increased traction for partnerships to solidify service offerings. The partnerships are predominantly centered on gaining certifications and the relevant technology expertise to improve analytics capabilities. Large service providers are also forging partnerships with startups and specialist players add specific tools and IPs to their existing portfolios.
AI, ML and automation-led solutions: As the market shifts toward cloud and IoT, service providers are leveraging AI, ML and automation-led solutions to increase the data management capabilities of their analytics solutions. Moreover, as organizations increasingly seek data inputs from various formats and file structures, automation solutions are becoming more relevant for the necessary cataloging and data parsing to enhance faster outputs. While the current solutions are predominantly rule-based, a few service providers are shifting toward cognitive-enabled AI solutions and embedding them in their analytics offerings.
Increasingly transformational projects: While most of the current analytics projects are centered on addressing specific business operational challenges, the market is witnessing an increased number of transformation projects to drive end-to-end organizational changes. These projects are systematically aimed at improving the whole business as well as operational processes and to create new areas for revenue generation.
Data science service trends: With the growing need for data scientists, the U.S. market does not have the resources it needs to meet demand. Many service providers are investing heavily in other regions, as well as in training, to increase the size of their data science teams. Some large service providers have also been partnering with universities and academic institutions to certify their employees as data scientists.
Data engineering trends: Service providers are showcasing their hyperscale and data lake capabilities to provide a holistic portfolio of offerings that meet organizational demands. Service providers with strong infrastructure capabilities have been gaining traction in the market for their data architecture, design and implementation capabilities.
Infrastructure and Integration trends: As most organizations are increasingly seeking cloud platforms, service providers are building cloud-native frameworks and designing data engineering architectures to suit these needs. This has resulted in service providers forging partnerships and gaining certifications from cloud-native platform vendors.
Data lifecycle management trends: As the demand from end-user organizations typically is focused on managing large volumes of data and various data and file formats, service providers are leveraging IP-based frameworks and AI and ML solutions to automate their offerings. Primarily, service providers are offering modular tools and solutions to address specific areas of data management, including cataloging, monitoring, classification, compliance and governance.
Analytics reporting trends: Service providers are embedding and augmenting reporting tools with cognitive capabilities and additional components to generate insights. As organizations seek an omnichannel presence, data inputs from different channels will require tighter integration with mobile, Web and TV environments, enabling data access and reporting anywhere.
Self-service BI reporting trends: Increasingly, organizations are demanding business intelligence (BI) reporting tools with significantly improved analytics capabilities as users expect advanced statistical and processing capabilities rather than simple visualizations. Service providers are embedding AI and ML capabilities to enhance user experience, as well as allowing data inputs through voice and other formats.
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