They say data is the new oil. They say data is the new currency. They say data is the key competitive differentiator. All true. But reality is sobering: Only 7% of firms report advanced, insights-driven practices. Respondents to the same survey claimed that less than half (49%) of all business decisions in their enterprise are made based on quantitative information — a number that hasn’t moved much in the past three years (46% in 2018 and 48% in 2019). Lastly, anecdotal evidence shows that less than 20% of all raw business and operational data makes it into analytical databases and applications, and only 20% of enterprise knowledge workers who could be leveraging enterprise-grade analytical applications are doing so.

The reasons for the lack of more progress are plentiful and not new and are spread across the usual suspects: strategy, process, people, data, and technology. Our team — Business Insights — has plenty of research to help you move the needle and become more advanced in your insights-driven business capabilities. We plan to showcase much of that research during Forrester’s Data Strategy & Insights Forum on October 13–15. Specifically, the track that I have the privilege to lead — “Amplify Intelligence With AI and Analytics” — will showcase our latest research on how to scale AI and analytics across six sessions.

While machine learning has been around for decades and is well understood, scaling it remains challenging. In this track, my colleagues will present their latest findings on successfully deploying machine learning models using model operations (ModelOps), democratizing machine-learning-based development with automated machine learning (AutoML), and scaling AI ethically and responsibly. They’ll also explain why democratization of data and AI requires new roles and responsibilities in your enterprise. There will be two bonus business-domain-specific sessions: one on boosting post-pandemic supply chain resilience using analytics and AI and one on autonomous, AI-based retail finance. And if you miss any of these presentations — the other two forum tracks are “Drive Your Digital Business With Data” and “Deepen Customer Relationships With Smarter Insights” (where I will be presenting on omnichannel text analytics/natural language processing) — no worries! Join me and my colleagues in the forum chat rooms, and book one-on-one virtual sessions with analysts.

Hope to see you at the Data Strategy & Insights Forum!