I clip in and drive down on the pedals with all of my energy, legs turning and lungs burning as my heart rate soars during this cycling test. I continue to push my limits during this eight-minute, all-out effort. Why would anyone put themselves through such an exercise? The answer is testing. It is a great method to determine the current baseline, establish targeted areas for development and set milestone events.

Today at Qonnections we outlined new innovations in multi-cloud and augmented intelligence that are setting the stage for Qlik as the leading platform for SaaS-based analytics. Leveraging our unique Associative Difference and Kubernetes-based architecture, Qlik is now able to deliver the full Qlik Sense Enterprise product on Qlik Cloud Services.

Qlik has been hard at work the past year transforming its customer success and support organization to truly align with customer needs in a SaaS first world. Today at Qonnections we announced a series of enhancements that put the customer at the center of everything we do at Qlik.

It’s a big day here at Qlik – we officially welcome Attunity into the fold after the formal close of our acquisition. Over the past year we’ve been executing on a vision of what customers truly need from their analytics partner – an enterprise-level data management strategy that fuels enterprise-wide analytics.

April is an exciting time at Qlik as we build momentum towards Qonnections 2019 and later in the quarter, the global Qlik Analytics Tour. These great events will showcase Qlik Sense April 2019 – which is now available! This release sets us apart from the competition with significant advancements to our multi-cloud capabilities – including a new enterprise SaaS deployment option, as well as innovative advancements to our market leading AI capabilities.

Last month we brought together two data experts for a webinar discussion on best practices and approaches to implementing analytics and defining data roadmaps. The renowned Dan Vesset from IDC joined Qlik’s Michael Distler to review the current state of the data journey and how users can plan for success.

Is it the Data Scientists and Millennials, or should our minds be broadened to look for other groups in our organisations that need and want data and it’s insight?

I recently had the pleasure of attending the Center for Business Analytics Career Panel event at Villanova University where myself and other analytics professionals sat on a panel to discuss the future of analytics with the students.

Back in the 60s Bod Dylan sang “The Times They Are a-Changin” which has become a famous and lasting anthem of change. Bowie wrote ‘Changes’ in the 70s but it’s the “Winds of Change” from the Scorpions that plays in my head when I hear the phrase - Change is the only constant, and nowhere is this truer than in the world of tech.

There’s recently been an important debate taking place on LinkedIn around the topic of relational databases, joins and how that impacts a user’s experience with analytics.