Thanks to the advent of Big Data and on-demand analytics, data management is sexy again. Jamie Popkin, VP & distinguished analyst at Gartner, Inc., joined theCUBE, SiliconANGLE’s Media team, at the MIT CDOIQ Symposium to talk about how this new technology is reshaping the role of data in business.

“I think that most enterprises recognize that data needs an advocate within the enterprise,” Popkin said. “And so the old ways of managing data, the old ways of building applications, cobbling together analytics on an as-needed basis, isn’t cutting it anymore… I think people recognize they need to build a data-governance strategy and they need to really treat information as an asset.”

This is a significant shift from the days of simple storage and management, but companies are not all embracing it at the same rate.

“We think about it in terms of the analytic process,” Popkin said. “There’s descriptive (what happened); there’s diagnostic (why did it happen).” And most companies have established ways to manage these two processes, he explained.

The future: Predictive and prescriptive analytics

“The future is predictive analytics and prescriptive analytics,” he said. The question now is: “How do you take all the data that you have and manage it in a way that you can build predictive and prescriptive analytical applications that become embedded in the business operating model?”

Popkin believes this is what is taking place right now.

Some companies are taking the approach that data and analytics need to be separate areas, with independent CDOs and CAOs, but this may not be a fit for every company. A new survey Gartner will release within the next two months indicates: “There is a wide range of scope. There is a wide range of organizational structure, and that people are really still in an early phase of adoption for it. And what we’re getting out of the survey is some of the richness of the experiences that people are having in different types of CDO roles,” Popkin said.

Embracing a solid information strategy

Regardless of the exact model, Popkin said that a solid information strategy is something enterprises need to embrace sooner rather than later.

“I think in the era of digital business, which is definitely the era that we’re in, you have to use information more strategically,” he stated. “And those organizations that are still doing some of that basic hygiene, they’re falling behind a little bit. And those that are getting on top of it and creating CDOs and starting to examine how advanced analytics can grow the business strategically, that’s absolutely where the game is right now.”

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of MITCDOIQ Symposium 2015.

Photo by SiliconANGLE