Gartner Data & Analytics Summit 2022: Five Highlights From the Top D&A Conference

The Gartner Data & Analytics Summit 2022 kicked off in Orlando, Florida, on 22 August. Here are the top highlights and announcements from the three-day summit, including the best industry insights from Gartner’s stable.

August 25, 2022

The Orlando chapter of the Gartner Data & Analytics Summit 2022 kicked off on August 22. The conference hosted keynotes, discussions and announcements around the role of data and analytics, digital ethics, producing business value with AI, best practices for trustworthy data interchange, and strategies to improve D&A risk culture. Here are the top highlights from Day 1 and Day 2 of the much-awaited D&A conference.

Data and analytics are becoming essential components of corporate strategy, greatly enhancing efforts to implement digital transformation. The ongoing Gartner Data & Analytics Summit has addressed the biggest issues that data analytics executives deal with as they create future-ready, innovative businesses during the event’s first two days.

The Orlando, Florida-based conference included a wide range of major announcements, outstanding presentations, and news regarding data and analytics. Spiceworks News & Insights has succinctly summarized a number of significant announcements and insights that generally encompass the function of D&A, digital ethics, generating business value with AI, best practices for reliable data exchange, and steps to enhance D&A risk culture.

See More: Data Analytics Career Path: Degree, Training, Jobs, and Salary in 2022

Key Highlights From Gartner’s Data & Analytics Summit 2022

New perspectives, better decisions

Data and analytics (D&A) served as a catalyst, facilitator, and remedy to all the uncertainties that companies have been facing. Gareth Herschel, VP analyst at Gartner, and Debra Logan, distinguished VP analyst at Gartner, examined how businesses may take fresh views into account when developing and implementing D&A and create smarter decisions in a dynamic world.

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Key highlights:

  • D&A experts should constantly assess not just how well we are gathering, integrating, and preserving our data but, more importantly, if we have the correct data.
  • The D&A experts should constantly assess how well we are gathering, integrating, and preserving our data and, more importantly, if we have the correct data.
  • The correct kind of data is more crucial than volume.
  • D&A executives may take four steps to guarantee they have the correct data: Stop gathering data just in case, think about replacing tiny data with large data, exchange genuine data for fake data, and make sure your active metadata informs you of both the existence and the meaning of the data you have.
  • By 2030, synthetic data is expected to make up the bulk of the data needed to create models, according to Gartner.
  • Decisions are not likely to be driven by data alone. Improve decision timeliness, acceleration, and connectivity to create better decisions.

Digital ethics: Where are you presently, and what comes next?

Digital ethics has grown to be a critical aspect for D&A leaders as businesses shift from debating what they should do about ethics to monitoring their success on digital ethics initiatives. In his talk, Frank Buytendijk, distinguished VP analyst at Gartner, addressed how firms might gauge their level of digital ethics maturity.

not every technology has the same footprint

Key points:

  • Every technological application needs digital ethics, but complicated or emergent technologies like artificial intelligence, blockchain, and metaverse require it more than others.
  • Digital ethics maturity in a company can range from being clueless or just concerned with legal compliance, through passive, where problems are resolved as they emerge, to proactive, where the business is actively designing the morally responsible course of action based on many viewpoints. At the greatest stage of development, ethics is a fundamental component of every action.
  • Gain confidence in the strategy-development process for digital ethics. Starting with principles or ideals, operationalize them by figuring out the underlying conflicts. After that, keep an eye out for unexpected repercussions and assume responsibility by establishing an escalation mechanism.
  • Keep in mind that various technologies have varying moral ramifications. Databases and development tools, for instance, could have a less moral impact, but new ethical considerations are needed for technologies like AI or the metaverse.
  • The basic line is that digital ethics is an issue that is now widely discussed. Put it on management’s agenda if it isn’t already.

Top data & analytics trends in 2022

Data and analytics (D&A) executives’ top priority in 2022 will be managing consequent and enduring unpredictability and volatility. The key D&A trends that D&A leaders need to be aware of to spur new growth, efficiency, resilience, and innovation were highlighted in this discussion by Ted Friedman, distinguished VP analyst at Gartner, and Carlie Idoine, VP analyst at Gartner.

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Safeguarding data sharing for maximum business value

Data sharing is essential for advancing digital business, enhancing risk mitigation, and increasing income. To assist D&A executives in modernizing and coordinating data sharing with stakeholder interests, corporate objectives, and organizational value, Lydia Clougherty Jones, senior director analyst at Gartner, gave an overview of the business imperative of data sharing during her session.

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Best practices according to Jones:

  • Embed data sharing in every relationship.
  • Embrace the chaos within augmented data ecosystems outside your organization’s control to find known and unknown relationships in combinations of diverse data.
  • Trusted data sharing means the optimal, not perfect, level of trust across data sharing ecosystems. Apply “situational trust,” not perfect trust, to achieve maximum value and benefit from data sharing.
  • While occasionally, the right amount of trust could also be perfect levels of trust, business leaders must resist the emotional pull toward over-investing in perfect trust, which ironically can create enhanced risk given emerging D&A liability theories.
  • The journey of eschewing perfect trust and instead establishing the right trust to match the situation at hand enables new business opportunities for data to reuse and resharing, accelerating data and analytics value while mitigating risk.

See More: What Is Data Analytics? Definition, Types, and Applications

Five steps to boost your data & analytics risk culture

In this discussion, Saul Judah, VP analyst at Gartner, outlined five steps data and analytics executives can take to strengthen their risk culture. He also highlighted why having a risk-aware culture can help them offer higher business value.

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According to the 2022 Gartner Chief Data Officer (CDO) study, 21% of CDOs claimed they are evaluated on their ability to manage risk, while only 8% said they are actively involved in fostering a culture of risk-taking.

The five actions to improve risk culture in organizations are: 

  • Evaluate your culture with observation, metrics, interviews and surveys.
  • Examine the effects of culture on your data analytics operational model and strategy. “Your culture could be a limiting factor, even if you have the finest plan on the globe.”
  • Create risk-aware data and analytics principles. “A principle is a concise assertion. It is applicable to everyone and serves as a behavioral anchor.”
  • Use the “culture hacks” required for awareness. “You may employ the technique of culture hacking to make a succession of tiny, immediate modifications in support of a more significant shift.”
  • In order to succeed, you must be ready to discuss the effects of any risk on the firm. “If you don’t explain the business effect, it will be challenging to secure the funds you need to handle the risk, and even if you do, all of the effort you undertake to address the risk will appear to be on the expense-side.”

What were your top takeaways from Gartner’s latest Data & Analytics Summit? Let us know on LinkedInOpens a new window , Facebook,Opens a new window and TwitterOpens a new window . We would love to hear from you!

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Ojasvi Nath
Ojasvi Nath

Assistant Editor, Spiceworks Ziff Davis

Ojasvi Nath is Assistant Editor for Toolbox and covers varied aspects of technology. With a demonstrated history of working as a business writer, she has now switched her interest to technology and handles a broad range of topics from cybersecurity, cloud, AI, emerging tech innovation to hardware. Being a philomath, Ojasvi thinks knowledge is like a Pierian spring. The more you dive in, the more you learn. You can reach out to her at ojasvi.nath@swzd.com
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