ISG forecasts 75% of enterprises will have data intelligence initiatives by 2027
The ISG Buyers Guide for Data Intelligence, produced by ISG Software Research (formerly Ventana Research), says that by 2027, three-quarters of enterprises will be engaged in data intelligence initiatives to facilitate and understand data production and consumption across their organizations.
ISG defines data intelligence as a layer in the stack above data platforms that combines related functionality, including data and application integration, data catalog, data quality, data lineage, metadata management and master data management. It also includes AnalyticOps, used to deliver agile and collaborative analytics that enable self-service access to data, aided by guided discovery and natural language search.
“Self-service access to data is only truly valuable if users can trust the data,” said Matt Aslett, director of Research, Analytics and Data, for ISG Software Research. “Enterprises need to ensure that business users and data analysts can find the data they need, understand what it means and trust that it is valid, current and can be relied upon in business decision-making.”
Removing barriers that prevent or delay users from gaining access to data enables it to be treated as a product—internally by employees or externally by partners and customers, the report says. ISG forecasts that six in 10 enterprises will adopt technologies in the next three years to deliver data as a product. This will require companies to adapt their cultural and organizational approaches to data ownership through the concept of data mesh, which dictates that those who generate the data own the data and are responsible for making it available.
“While data democratization facilitates access to data, it is not a free-for-all,” Aslett notes. “In addition to core data and data catalog functionality, it requires data lineage and data quality capabilities as well as contextual understanding of the data, such as its criticality and whether it is subject to regulatory requirements.”
For its 2024 Buyers Guides for Data Intelligence, ISG evaluated software providers across six platform categories—Application Integration, Data Governance, Data Integration, Data Intelligence, Master Data Management and Data Quality—and produced a separate Buyers Guide for each.
A total of 43 providers were assessed in their respective categories: Actian, Alation, Alibaba Cloud, Alteryx, Ataccama, Atlan, AWS, Boomi, Celigo, Cleo, Cloud Software Group, Collibra, Confluent, Databricks, Denodo, Experian, Fivetran, Frends, Google Cloud, Hitachi Vantara, Huawei Cloud, IBM, informatica, Jitterbit, Matillion, Melissa Data, Microsoft, Oracle, Precisely, Qlik, Quest Software, Reltio, Rocket Software, Salesforce, SAP, SAS Institute, SnapLogic, Solace, Stibo Systems, Syndigo, Syniti, Tray.ai and Workato.
Among these, only IBM, Informatica and Oracle were assessed in all six categories.
ISG Software Research designates the top three software providers as Leaders in each category. For the 2024 study, the leading providers in ranked order are:
Application Integration: Oracle, SAP and Informatica
Data Governance: Informatica, IBM and Microsoft
Data Integration: Informatica, Microsoft and Oracle
Data Intelligence: Informatica, IBM and SAP
Data Quality: Informatica, IBM and Oracle
Master Data Management: Informatica, IBM and Oracle
“The way for any organization, anywhere to gain competitive advantage and improve efficiency is to improve its ability to make fast, impactful decisions driven mainly by the data it cultivates,” said Mark Smith, partner of Software Research at ISG. “Ironically, too many organizations lack the knowledge or skill to determine how best to leverage their own data in their decision-making processes.”
