In a digital society that’s not only producing more data by the day but also creating more sources that will generate additional data, it’s clear that analytic-minded companies need to embrace the simplicity of the cloud.
Consumer technology fits our mobile lives perfectly, but most workplace tools are rigid and don’t reflect our on-the-go economy.
Even though some companies are finally embracing big data and implementing analytics infrastructure to get ahead of their peers, they’ll have trouble generating actionable insights for their entire workforce without multi-cloud analytics.
Let’s discuss multi-cloud analytics, the common adoption challenges businesses to face, how to overcome those barriers and the benefits that doing so will yield.
What Are Multi-Cloud Analytics?
A lot of complexities go into multi-cloud analytics, but its core concept is quite straightforward. Multi-cloud analytics is a branch of a multi-cloud strategy, which is essentially the use of multiple cloud computing and storage services within one architecture. Multi-cloud analytics specifically focuses on integrating different providers for collecting and processing data.
Historically, businesses have had to battle legacy tools that didn’t work alongside each other. Multi-cloud analytics tries to emulate the seamless connectivity of our everyday personal lives into the workplace.
Common Challenges Businesses Face Implementing Multi-Cloud Analytics
Multi-cloud analytics certainly offers enterprises a lot of potential benefits, but like introducing anything for company use, the return on investment will only be as good as a business’ adoption rate.
One hurdle any company faces when unveiling new technology or processes in the workplace is user adoption. Because with tech comes options; having a choice causes us to develop different preferences. When an enterprise with 1,000-plus employees tries to get everyone using the same product, it’s understandable that a certain percentage of employees won’t want to use the new platform or will have issues adopting it in their workflow.
There’s also the fact that the ease of deciding to “add another app” carries additional responsibilities for IT.
As Renu Upadhyay writes for CMSWire, “Unfortunately, provisioning business applications rarely mimics the simplicity of the consumer experience. For IT, managing these rogue apps is especially difficult given the many different types of mobile, cloud, web and Windows apps — none of which work across all devices.”
Governance and security aside, it’s also incredibly difficult to ensure one truth when using different applications since data types and structures vary, as do the security layers from the applications. Poor data integrity can hurt employee adoption. Figuring out how to blend dozens of different applications seamlessly can lengthen deployment time, meaning more money, and lost productivity for a business in the interim.
How to Overcome Roadblocks
To say that the answer to multi-cloud adoption is more tools should understandably conjure an eye roll or two, but it’s true. Given that millennials will comprise 75 percent of the workforce by 2025 and everyone from teenagers to aging Baby Boomers are always within an arm’s reach of their phone mean that enterprise technology must get more accessible and integrated.
Organizations that are serious about leaving ambiguities behind without sacrificing security are turning to cloud business intelligence (BI) platformslike ThoughtSpot that mimic the technology we’ve gotten used to as consumers. ThoughtSpot works by consolidating all of a company’s data sources into one analytics search bar. Users can also share insights by embedding them into chat tools, email or through the platform itself.
These types of platforms pair engaging consumer features with backend support to mitigate hassles on the IT and data team’s end. Admins can set fine-grained permissions for users, teams, and departments, as well as monitor the health of data sources — all from one place.
How Multi-Cloud Analytics Benefits Companies
Achieving a multi-cloud workplace takes careful planning, time, money, and most importantly, a company culture that craves more accessibility. But if a business can get there, they stand to benefit in many ways.
Multi-cloud analytics helps organizations:
- Break down data silos and disparate technologies.
- Increase employee morale.
- Collaborate more fluidly.
- Make more informed decisions.
- Enjoy better productivity.
- Free up bandwidth for IT and data teams.
This last point is debatable, which is why it’s crucial for companies to not only think multi-cloud with their analytics process but a sustainable multi-cloud process. If the shift toward the future is riddled with problematic deployments, questionable security, analytics inconsistencies, and accessibility issues, organizations are no better off than they were with legacy systems.
More on this topic: How A Multi-Cloud Strategy and Collaboration Can Accelerate Your Digital Transformation