"Solutions based on AI and machine learning hum along well during stable times but fall apart
when disaster strikes. These technologies automate tasks by extracting patterns from data
and turning them into instructions. Such models can quickly become obsolete when the
inputs to the system change. Analytics, in contrast, alerts you when the rules of the game are
changing. Without that kind of a warning, automation solutions can quickly go off the rails,
leaving you exposed to exogenous shocks."
Is the Investment Worth the Cost?
Becoming a data-driven organization comes at a cost. The big question becomes -- is it worth
it? According to McKinsey, most companies will need to modernize their data architecture,
identify and collect data from a myriad of sources, design algorithms to model data and drive
insights, and hire or train the talent to do it all. McKinsey suggests that the price tag for these
efforts can run from hundreds of millions of dollars for a midsize organization to billions of
dollars for the largest companies.
How do companies find the resources to fund those capabilities? McKinsey says many of its
clients are seeing significant savings from following one particular practice -- better
managing the data across the enterprise. By controlling a burgeoning data infrastructure,
instituting improved data standards, and imposing best practices can reap big rewards. "Even
better," says McKinsey, "many of the recommended improvements can be applied quickly. In
cases we have seen, businesses have captured double-digit savings within six months.
Institutionalizing and expanding these changes can lead to bigger gains over the long term."
THE NEED FOR SPEED | 13
The Rise of Edge Computing
While still considered in its infancy, the concept of
edge computing has been gaining ground with many
industries around the globe. The term refers to a
distributed computing framework that maintains both
processing and storage resources closer to the actual
source of the data -- instead of within the centralized
datacenter and cloud infrastructure.
The analyst firm IDC predicts that over 50% of new
enterprise IT infrastructure deployed will be at the
edge rather than corporate datacenters by the year
2023. That number is up from less than 10% today. The
firm also predicts that the worldwide edge computing
market will reach $250.6 billion in 2024 with a
compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.5% over
the 2019–2024 forecast period.
