Inhi Cho Suh, the head of data integration and governance for IBM’s Software Group, returned to theCUBE at Information on Demand 2013 to discuss the role of analytics in decision making with SiliconANGLE founder John Furrier and Wikibon’s Dave Vellante.

Suh observes that the market has changed significantly since 2012, with more and more vendors – including her firm, which she says is leading the charge – taking a platform approach to Big Data market. The user landscape is also changing as companies continue to adopt the technology in pursuit of better insights.

“Privacy, security risk – this is what people are talking about, they want to invest in it more. Why? Because, you know what, the decisions matter: they want to make bigger bets, they want to do more things around customer experience, they want to improve products, they want to improve pricing,” Suh says. Implementing analytics is relatively straight-forward, but overcoming the cultural barriers to data-driven decisions is another matter entirely. Not all sectors are ready for this new paradigm, Suh notes, but progress is being made. IBM is setting the pace for the ecosystem, helping companies break out of their legacy models in the healthcare industry and beyond.

“Typically in a workforce process, you’re applying capabilities where you’ve modeled out your steps – you do A before B before C and you automate this leveraging BPM-type capabilities,” Suh explains. “In a data context you don’t actually start necessarily with knowing what the workflow is, you let the data determine what the workflow should be.” In the long run, Suh sees analytics empowering professionals across all verticals to focus on what they do best instead of getting bogged down in procedure.

Watch the interview below for exclusive insight into how IBM customers are leveraging their Big Data to improve patient care and catch criminals.