Videos

Doug: Hi, Doug Cahill here with my colleague, Christophe Bertrand, to share with you the details of a forthcoming ESG research study around the continuing journey from data backup to data intelligence. Hey Christophe, I think a great way to start in sharing the ground that you are covering in this research study is really by setting the table by defining ESG's point of view on intelligent data management.

Christophe: Well, Doug, intelligent data management is really the next stage of storage, and backup, and recovery in many ways. About two and a half, three years ago, we created this maturity model that explains the various stages which started from during on-premises storage, and backup, and recovery, and now, it's all in the cloud.

This is where the battleground is. But the truth is, in order to digitally transform and to optimize the reuse of data assets, organizations are looking at these vendors to help them get to that next stage, which I call data intelligence or intelligent management, recognizing that in order to use the data, I have to provide context and content to make it intelligent. Because you know what, it's not going to be used just by the backup and recovery folks, it's going to be used by other people in the organizations, other personas.

And our research, which is the continuing journey because it's the second time we'll be running it, this research will really look at where we're at, what are the trends, where are we in terms of adoption, hurdles, in terms of successes that the organizations have been able to get to with the intelligent data management.

Doug: Excellent. So second annual study on the topics, we'll be able to understand trending because it's a dynamic space. Hey, given, you know, data is the lifeblood for organizations, right, and there's absolutely core strategic asset, I imagine you're going to really focus on use cases. And I know you, like myself, really always counsel vendors to speak to use cases in their marketing and sort of get away from some features and functions and really talk about use cases, what do you posit here you're going to find in this research being some of the top use cases for data intelligence?

Christophe: I believe that the use cases that we will see emerge will be around the ability to reuse data for test DevOps. Obviously, there are lots of intertwined technologies here around cloud and containers, etc. I also believe that we'll see that organizations naturally want to reuse data for analytics. Now, here's the catch.

Do they understand the role of compliance, the role of privacy because we can't necessarily reuse data just like that, so we'll explore that. And, of course, there are some connective tissue with cybersecurity concerns and as a matter of fact, the intelligent data management we see now, the number of vendors coming from different spaces, coming at this problem from different areas.

So looking also at how much people are classifying their data, how they're doing it, is it structured or unstructured somewhere in the middle, what about all of that SaaS data? So we're going to be looking at all of these dimensions, and, of course, that's going to open up conversations about the type of personas that may be involved on the vendor side, in terms of interaction in the sales process and go-to-market process.

Doug: Absolutely makes sense. Some intelligent data management use cases, as you have noted, touched immediately adjacent market categories. And therefore, these products will span IT boundaries and so, I imagine, you know, getting the personas where the buyer's journey is going to be a core focus of the study.

Christophe: Absolutely. And I know that it's something that not only IT professionals are interested in because they need a better understanding of what's going on and what their peers are saying, and how they work together better. And, of course, on the vendors' side, it's very important to talk to the right people about the right things in the sales process. So I believe that it will be beneficial on both ends and for sure, because of our insights and the fact we've already done, historically, this research, we will have, I believe, some very valuable information and comparison points.

Doug: Excellent. Hey, why don't we wrap up things where you share with everybody where we're at in the study in terms of call for sponsors, next steps, how they learn more?

Christophe: So, we are looking for sponsors and you can see the information here on your screen. We will make it simple, make it easy. Just give us a call. You can download or take a look at our prospectus and just get in touch with us. We'll talk about how we can have you join this research.