The digital landscape in the UK is evolving at an unprecedented pace. Digital sites are diversifying rapidly. As data and analytics are integrated into core business activities, organisations may increasingly be required to process and visualise large datasets in real time in order to deliver products and services that meet evolving customer needs. Commercial success may increasingly be dependent on effective collaboration between technology professionals and those generating and using business data.
Real-time data is redefining platform performance
There is a growing trend across industry to process live data. Operators are increasingly deploying real-time data pipelines to add value to a UK sports betting site by surfacing live odds, personalised markets, and behavioural nudges that keep engagement well above industry averages. Betting is not alone. Latency and relevance are also pressing issues in retail, fintech and media, and many of the same technologies are being developed to address these challenges across industries.
The UK’s digital economy is now delivering more than £150 billion each year to the economy, and a growing proportion of this is coming from new and exciting platforms that are now able to respond in real time to the on-going behaviour of users. Unlike in the past where users had to wait for the next day for their behaviour to be processed and turned into a report, or even a visual display, this new breed of digital platforms can monitor and react in real time to trends emerging as they happen.
Policy and compliance are shaping how analytics is used
Platforms seeking to list for ICOs will need to be able to demonstrate how any use of analytics tools respects the rights of data owners – creating a new vector for organisations to required to document the data processing operations of certain tools. The FCA’s new guidelines for financial platform ICOs have also created a need for financial platforms to be able to provide regulatory data in real time, with some of that information being used to make automated decisions about consumers.
Meanwhile the government has been pressing on with its broader digital transformation plans, seeking to ensure that UK data policies remain competitive on the international stage. Proposed changes to data regulation, aimed atstreamlining processes for businesses while preserving protections for individuals, have been central to these plans.
What this means for local and regional businesses
For businesses based in places such as Harrogate the trends within the retail technology sector are becoming increasingly apparent. Cloud-based analytics allows a small independent retailer to carry out complex business analytics that previously would have been cost prohibitive to a business of that size. While mainstream media coverage of data driven business has so far focused around larger national corporations, it is interesting to note that regional businesses are now utilising the same tools and beginning to compete on a more level playing field, as reported in the BBC’s business technology section.
The focus so far has been on getting the data right; the next step is to begin exploring ways to put that data into action. The challenge lies in making sense of the data internally before implementing it.
A structural shift, not a passing trend
The adoption of real-time analytics by UK digital sites may mark a shift in the way value is created online as organisations start to see data as a core operational asset, rather than just a tool for generating reports for stakeholders.
