Reporting analytics are no doubt becoming more commonly used tools among business leaders from virtually every industry, but one can easily make the argument that these novel technologies have not even come close to reaching their peak functionality. Rather, big data is still a novel trend, and one about which many companies still have plenty of ground to cover to ensure they are using the solutions to the best of their abilities. 

Luckily, an ever-expanding universe of use cases and research regarding the potential applications of big data and advanced analytics is ready for the taking, helping business owners become a bit more intelligent in their relevant strategies. Firms which have not yet started to embrace these technologies should certainly do so soon, as the advantages of using these tools are vast and risks involved in balking at such investments might be high in the near future. 

Trends impacting analytics
Gartner research vice president and chair of the firm's Business Intelligence and Analytics Summit Kurt Schlegel recently offered some insights into the trends that are driving big data adoption, as well as what companies need to do to get the most{out of these investments. When asked to explain what chief information officers and other business leaders need to do to succeed with analytics in the coming months, the expert highlighted the importance of teamwork. 

"Putting the right team together," he responded. "CIOs need to make sure there is a cross functional team of technical and business skills, and an organizational structure that serves both the centralized needs of the enterprise and the decentralized needs of local domains. CIOs also must create a more realistic plan for technology standardizations, for example, logical data warehouse vs. enterprise data warehouse, data discovery as an augmentation to traditional BI and provision capabilities for the big data era."

He also noted that mobile, social and cloud frameworks will continue to become more important aspects of analytics in the coming years. 

Getting prepared
The first step is to simply embrace big data and reporting analytics for smaller projects. This will help the firm become accustomed to the management demands and other matters which will impact the eventual success or failure of the programs in the long-term. By leveraging the support and solutions of a trustworthy, experienced automation and reporting analytics software provider, the initial stages might be a bit more successful.