If data is currency in today’s digital environment, then organizations should waste no time in making sure every business user has fast access to data-driven insights.

At Cloudera we’re building the world’s only hybrid data platform that’s founded on open source and truly hybrid. What do we mean by truly hybrid? Well, not only does it seamlessly support on-premises and cloud-based deployments alike, but uniquely, it is cloud vendor agnostic, allowing multi-cloud strategies to thrive.

At least every few years, utility companies release squadrons of drones into the skies to digitally photograph hard-to-reach equipment and check for wear and tear. Around the world, there are 3 million miles of high-voltage transmission lines – enough to go from the moon and back half-a-dozen times – and as much as 64 million miles of local transmission lines; that represents a lot of images, and even more data.

Since the very first email was sent more than 50 years ago, the now-ubiquitous communication tool has evolved into more than just an electronic method of communication. Businesses have come to rely on it as a storage system for financial reports, legal documents, and personnel records. From daily operations to client and employee communications to the lifeblood of sales and marketing, email is still the gold standard for digital communications.

If you’re in business, you’ve probably already heard of business intelligence (BI) tools. With the use of embedded analytics, BI helps organizations improve decision making and planning by providing them with a valuable way to manage, analyze, and visualize data that is often difficult to access or even find. Spreadsheets and ad-hoc reporting are now a thing of the past. When used correctly, it can be a great way to help you keep your finger on the pulse of your business.

Customer advocacy is one of the Snowflake Support team’s most important roles. Working closely with customers around the world every day, we listen and learn to gain meaningful insights into Snowflake products, the ways our customers use those products, and the challenges they face. We feel a deep responsibility to take those insights and trends, analyze them, and drive positive change on behalf of Snowflake customers.

Relational databases are great at processing transactions, but they’re not designed to run analytics at scale. If you're a data engineer or a data analyst, you may want to continuously replicate your operational data into a data warehouse in real time, so you can make timely, data driven business decisions.

Deciding to adopt an AI-first strategy is the easy part. Figuring out how to implement it takes a little more effort. It requires a clear-eyed vision built around well-defined goals and a realistic execution plan. Being AI-first means setting up your organization for the future. By leveraging data, analytics, and automation, a company can gain a better understanding of where it is and where it needs to go.

At Talend, we hear every day from our customers that healthier data makes it easier to increase revenue, reduce costs, and mitigate risk. But the journey to healthier data isn’t always easy. To support healthy data, organizations must unify data activities across users with different skill sets and levels of technical expertise through intelligence and self-service capabilities.

What is the one thing that all business leaders need to get started with data analytics? The answer is simple. You need to start with the right analytics platform. Selecting the right BI platform is complex, and there are many things that you need to consider. It will help if you consider that an analytic tool should provide all the features a business needs. It should also have a well-established reputation and a track record of delivering reliable and quality market data solutions.