According to data from Statista Research, the big data and business analytics sector is expected to generate $210 billion (U.S.) in revenue by 2020 (Source: Statista) Business leaders watching grow in the data analytics sector are best prepared to take advantage of new products and services to help their companies grow. This whitepaper offers insights on 10 top data analytics trends to watch in 2018.If you want to accelerate growth for your company, one of the savviest moves you can make is to double-down on business analytics. Detailed data analytics let you do everything from measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns to understand inefficiencies in your recruitment process. Entrepreneurs and software developers within the data analytics sector are building a wide variety of data analysis products for business builders, causing increasing interest in the analytics sector from everyone from venture capitalists to small business owners and CIOs (chief information officers). With significant growth happening in this industry, business leaders would be well advised to pay attention to hot trends within the data analytics space. Following are 10 patterns within the data analytics sector expected to see continued activity throughout 2018-19.Watch for increasing activity in the enterprise analytics sector, especially when it comes to the use of predictive analytics for more efficient enterprise products. From data security and asset management to human resources analytics and supply chain analytics, the enterprise analytics sector is bustling with activity. Analytics companies are being developed to help enterprise users improve their talent acquisition efforts, scale their machine learning implementations, maximize their IoT (internet of things) product offerings, and enhance the efficiency of their B2B sales analytics. If you are looking for an intriguing area for investment, employment, or innovation, look no further than the enterprise analytics sectorThe combination of artificial intelligence and analytics is another top trend to watch in 2018. The integration of AI is a natural progression for data analytics; developers are wasting no time incorporating AI into a multitude of analytical business tools. Look for AI-enabled analytics tools to increase government innovation, improve fleet management, redefine statistical analysis in the market research sector, and advance the ways businesses use their databases. From artificial intelligence for bot analytics to AI-enabled event analytics, you will see plenty of growth in the AI + analytics sector in 2018.Expect 2018 to be a year of significant growth in the genetics analytics market. Entrepreneurs, scientists, and investors are building innovative analytics products in this market at a rapid rate. Watch for analytics tools for patient profiling, analytics for personalized health management, genetics analytics for plants, and data analytics for genetic testing. From genome analysis to genetics analysis for soil, the growth in this sector is nothing short of incredible.Another area seeing explosive growth is the smart building analytics and smart city analytics sector. As an ever-increasing number of companies/building managers/developers integrate smart building technology into their developments, the need for analysis of the data provided by smart building technology grows. Combine this with the growing interest in smart city technology (e.g., autonomous vehicle tracking, wireless infrastructure, IoT-enabled air quality systems), and you see why interest in the smart building/smart city analytics sector is growing. Don’t expect innovation in this sector to slow down. When you add technologies like solar power into the mix, the smart-tech analytics sector will continue to heat up (pun intended!).Watch for increased activity in the cryptocurrency analytics sector in 2018. Innovators in this market are already creating analytics tools for cryptocurrency exchanges, blockchain marketplaces, cryptocurrency asset management, and cryptocurrency crowdfunding analytics. From big data analytics for cryptocurrency trading to analytics for merchants accepting cryptocurrencies as a form of payment, expect continued interest (and volatility) in this market.Voice analytics activity is expected to grow as more homes and businesses incorporate voice-enabled devices like Google Home and Amazon Alexa into their daily activities. Entrepreneurs are already creating voice analytics for software developers, communication analytics for enterprise voice technology users, voice analytics for APIs (application programming interface), and analytics for machine translations of voice-created conversations. There are companies creating analytics products for their podcast conversion tools, analytics to understand seniors’ speech and predict health concerns, and analytics for speech recognition software. While the voice analytics sector may not get as much attention as areas like enterprise and IoT analytics, it is nonetheless just as exciting and a sector to watch.Speaking of IoT, the IoT analytics sector is hotter than ever in 2018. Innovation is happening in the retail IoT analytics sector, analytics for the IoT oil and gas sector, analytics for IoT-enabled energy grids, and even analytics for IoT-enabled medical devices. As more devices become connected to the internet, watch for interest in the IoT analytics space to continue to grow. Investors can now investigate IoT analytics for the agriculture sector, bio-metrics sector, and the virtual reality/augmented reality sector too.[/vc_accordion_tab][vc_accordion_tab title=”Fintech”]Activity in the fintech analytics sector isn’t expected to die down in 2018. The financial technology analytics sector has already seen significant investor activity to date (crunchbase.com/search/funding_rounds/c173fd389650d09b78d131f270d6cfcf68b99f9e), and interest in this sector is expected to continue throughout 2018. Look for data analytics tools for stock exchanges, analytics for insurance risk assessment, B2B e-commerce analytics, and business intelligence analytics for cloud computing companies. Everything from curated financial data to machine learning-enabled wealth management software gets analyzed via data analytics software. As investor Marc Andreessen once famously said “software is eating the world”; this definitely applies to the financial analytics sector.Analytics for the logistics sector is another hot market to watch in 2018. Data analytics tools are being developed for fleet managers to better understand the movements/productivity of their vehicles/planes/ships, for food delivery providers to understand the efficiency of their on-demand drivers, and even logistics for flight aggregators. The logistics industry is ripe for disruption, and the combination of analytics + transportation is an intriguing combination too good for many investors to pass by (crunchbase.com/search/funding_rounds/09e9ad1b26307f9dd0269f049c251c6b7c747253).With the growing usage of video for everything from content marketing to social media outreach, the video analytics sector will see increased activity in 2018. Firms are developing video analytics products for educators, personalized health coaching professionals, talent recruiters, and sales professionals. Video is a powerful tool for engagement, but the real power of video is only understood when you dig into the analytics of your video outreach efforts. Watch for even more activity in the video analytics sector as everyone from B2B marketers to physicians and SaaS providers double-down on video outreach in 2018.[/vc_column_text]As the above-listed top trends indicate, the data analytics sector is more active than ever. Whether you are looking for analytics tools to improve the efficiency of your government contract bidding process or you want an analytics tool to help you improve the efficiency of your software development team, you can find what you seek thanks to the innovation happening in the data analytics sector. Stay tuned for even more activity in analytics; this sector shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
- Global information technology spending to reach $3.7 trillion in 2018 (Source: Zdnet).
- The most significant increase in information technology spending to be on predictive analytics (Source: IDG).
- 79% of UK chief information officers expected to invest in data analytics in 2018 and 2019 (Source: CIO).
