Key data management challenges and opportunities for SMBs

Last year saw some groundbreaking changes and regulations in the field of data management and protection. The General Data Protection Regulation came into effect, the California Consumer Privacy Act was passed, and the Cambridge Analytica Facebook data breach came into the limelight.

In short, it was a landmark year for data management and protection. With all that has happened in the past year, it is safe to say that the events have laid the foundations for several data management challenges and opportunities in 2019. Yes, 2018 was only the beginning of the evolution of data management and data transparency that will continue well into 2019. Here are a few reasons this year will be transformative for data management and Big Data companies, and what it portends for small and medium-sized businesses.

Firms will lay more emphasis on data transparency

Currently, almost all consumer-oriented companies are handling incredible volumes of data. The massive influx of consumer data results from social media interactions, website visits, and visitor navigation.

This kind of data usually contains significant consumer information including sensitive bank account info and card details. Increasing threats of malware and ransomware attacks have put consumer information at risk before.

Therefore, enterprises are now driven toward accommodating heightened data protection measures.

Data protection not only applies toward the data in the company database but also to the information across several platforms, social media channels, and cloud applications.

That inevitably calls for procedural transparency regarding data handling, storage, and management. All enterprises will have to adopt state-of-the-art technology solutions, which are better equipped to protect consumer data and provide data reports to the companies in real-time.

Data management means improvement of data security

Data security

Since more companies are now thinking about improving their customer experience, data security is becoming more important for them than ever. Although it has been a perennial concern, organizations now have new data regulations and protection laws to follow.

Data is now being distributed across multiple regional and international platforms. As a result, companies are using multiple data platforms including relational, nonrelational, and Apache Hadoop/Spark. The presence of data across multiple platforms and geographic regions is increasing the complication of protection.

It is accelerating the migration of data to enterprise clouds. The incredible data flow is making on-premises data analysis increasingly difficult for most companies.

Most of the technologies the global corporations now use were designed for internal use only. As a result, the lack of access controls and safe default configurations is posing a poignant challenge to all leading data management companies in the global landscape.

It is a stellar opportunity for data management automation or DataOps that can simplify the collection, access, storage, and categorization of data from multiple channels and platforms.

Increased focus on consumer experience

With increased attention to customer experience (CX), more companies are likely to work on their website and application interfaces. Many corporations are investing in the growth of machine learning and AI.

They are leveraging their consumer databases to create buyer personas that help them provide the right products and services to the target audiences. Entering a website and finding exactly what a visitor is looking for will definitely help the site score brownie points from the visitor.

A significant part of user experience (UX) is not only the UI, but also the level of comfort and security a user experiences while working on a website or app.

Leading corporations are making a move to adopt DataOps technologies to streamline the data flow and accessibility. This will provide enhanced protection to all sorts of sensitive data from their consumers.

The data management trends of 2019 will not only power a revamp of the backend technologies, but also the frontend of every website service and application.

Since UX is not just about the site’s looks and features anymore, it is creating new opportunities for data management firms. The matrimony of security and UI is giving the SMBs a chance to reinvent their online presence and reinstate their authority in the market.

Leveraging consumer data without infringing privacy rights

infringing privacy rights

The governance of data is becoming one of the most prominent challenges for organizations. As data moves from one location to another, or from on-premise servers to the cloud, the regulations and restrictions become more pervasive.

Years ago, it was easy for companies to monetize the data consumers provided on the website. It was easy for them to store it, monitor it and use it when necessary to complete a conversion.

Some of these companies that only rely on consumer data for a living, are facing immense trouble with the strict data laws and privacy acts coming into action. They are already struggling to keep up with the new laws that focus on consumer data protection.

We will see plenty of new laws and regulations on data protection and privacy in 2019, and all the SMBs should brace themselves. It is the time for the new small and medium-sized business dealing with Big Data to find out their offense and defense strategies in terms of data-related problems.

Data management will unleash the power of Big Data

Big Data has been around for years, but only a few SMBs have dealt with it this far. Only a handful of organizations have the necessary cloud infrastructure necessary to handle Big Data.

The ones who have had a tryst with Big Data have begun looking at different data lake concepts. These usually include a combination of Hadoop Distributed File System infrastructure, relational and non-relational data stores, event stream processing and others.

When it comes to Big Data, it is not just the volume of the data influx that poses a challenge, but also the sheer variety of it. The fresh influx of data is always highly heterogeneous. A corporation needs more than enough storage space to utilize Big Data.

Currently, all leading new businesses depending on Big Data are looking for inexpensive technologies to extract the insights from the data. One can only hope that in 2019, SMBs will finally be able to find advanced technologies capable of analyzing and uncovering unexplored opportunities in their Big Data lake.

Data is the new fuel that powers the cogs of multinational conglomerates as well as the SMBs. The importance of data is not lost on the newly emerging businesses that want to make it big today.

We can safely predict that 2019 will be the year that all small and medium-sized companies will fine-tune their approach toward Big Data management and meet the demands of their data-aware consumers.

Featured image: Freerange Stock

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