Top 8 data analytics trends to watch in 2021

CARY, N.C., Dec. 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- As government agencies, businesses and individuals continue to navigate the coronavirus pandemic's ongoing disruption, no one would have predicted the impact on innovation and digital transformation across the global landscape. Now, as the world prepares to head into the new year, analytics leader SAS' most forward-thinking experts offer insights for using analytics to transform data into decisions that improve lives and results:

    1. Reconfiguring the cloud for analytics"Originally the cloud was built for
       transactional systems. It wasn't built for analytics. Analytics requires
       a lot more memory than a traditional application - and faster networks to
       get to data that is not in memory - in order to make analytics work in
       real time. Those are things cloud providers didn't think about because
       initial applications in the cloud were transactional."     -  Tom Fisher,
       Senior Vice President of Business Development, SAS



    2. Decision makers start to trust AI"The more visibility that decision
       makers have into AI results, the more confidence they have in the
       decisions that are being made by the models. Adding human oversight and
       explaining the models at each step in a decision process will start to
       bring acceptance to AI and automated decisioning."       -  João
       Oliveira, Business Solutions Manager, SAS



    3. Smart towns catch up to smart cities"As city dwellers flee the city, they
       expect the same levels of service in the country, including fast
       broadband, food delivery and digital interaction with government agencies
       and civic planners. Small towns are catching up with cities using
       analytics. Now that where you work no longer matters, smaller cities have
       an opportunity to attract and recruit people to relocate using analytics,
       driving population growth that was previously unattainable."     -  Shaun
       Barry, Senior Manager, Global Security Practice, SAS



    4. The year of the vaccine"If 2020 was the year of COVID, 2021 will be the
       year of the vaccine. Which vaccine will be approved first? Which will get
       distributed around the globe? Will we rely on multiple vaccines to
       improve distribution and effectiveness? Analytics will not only play a
       role in approvals for the vaccine development process but will also be
       important for planning rollout and tracking distribution, side effects
       and effectiveness."     -  Greg Horne, Global Principal for Health Care,
       SAS



    5. Consumers gain more control with remote everything"Consumers are in
       control when it comes to retail digitization, banking digitization,
       health care digitization - and more. Work, school, lectures, concerts,
       book readings, religious services, fitness workouts: If it can go remote,
       it is going remote. As consumers do more online, businesses are expected
       to keep up. That means improved digital technologies, more efficient
       supply chains, online customer service and easy scheduling - all managed
       and optimized with analytics. The benefit to the business? If you can
       digitize quickly, you'll have more data and a better view into who's
       interested in your content, products and services."      -  Klaus
       Kohlmayr, Chief Evangelist, IDeaS



    6. Data natives enter the workforce"A generation raised on data - from
       eating and exercising to sleeping and productivity - is beginning to
       enter the workforce. Their innate abilities to track and understand data
       will improve the ways we work. They bring data literacy skill sets and a
       comfort level with data that will help make all aspects of organizations
       more analytical and more innovative with data."      -  Lucy Kosturko,
       Manager for Social Innovation, SAS



    7. Patient-first pharma saves more lives"The data-heavy drug development
       process continues to improve with advanced analytics - and all of the
       improvements benefit patients. Due to advancements in analytics, for
       example, clinical trials are able to bucket multiple drugs into one study
       instead of only studying one drug at a time. Targeted therapies based on
       your genetic profile are becoming easier to develop. And results from
       every phase of clinical trials are coming in faster and faster, giving
       patients a better opportunity to find the latest treatments that will
       work for them."      -  Mark Lambrecht, Director of Global Health and
       Life Sciences, SAS


    8. Old-school organizations have new opportunities to reinvent themselves
       with analytics"Data-driven government responses to COVID-19, for example,
       are changing perceptions of government responsiveness. And banks that
       implement automated decisions are surprising customers with new
       investment opportunities. Today, the industry that invented analytics is
       showing that it can apply analytics in new ways to help citizens."     - 
       Steve Bennett, Director of Public Sector and Financial Services, SAS

Learn how SAS, partners and customers are applying analytics to curb the COVID-19 pandemic, build resilience and reimagine a brighter, safer future in 2021 and beyond: https://www.sas.com/en_us/covid19.html.

About SAS
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SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries. ® indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies. Copyright © 2020 SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved.

Editorial Contact:
Tricia Jenkins
tricia.jenkins@sas.com
919-531-1539
sas.com/news

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SOURCE SAS