A Data-First Approach

The CEO went on to say that organizations must put data at the center of their transformations.

“Three years ago, I said that we were entering the age of insight. Focus on deriving valuable insights from data that could elevate every human being on this planet. Today, data volume is growing an exponential rate. An organization must acquire the tools and skills to quickly extract insights and value. Putting data at the core of an organization’s value engine is an opportunity across all industries.”

He said firms must start to think of data as a strategic asset. “As I have said many times, I think data will be one day recorded, tracked in the corporate balance sheets in the enterprise.”

He also noted that the European Commission has declared a vision for data “that will be the lifeblood of economic development. Governments across Europe are investing in data technologies and data sharing architectures and adopting measures to strengthen data sovereignty and user privacy.”

Neri said a data-first approach should empower organizations to collaborate, innovate and generate data network effects without sacrificing privacy or control over the data driven business models.

One example of data network effects is swarm learning, he said. This is a decentralized machine learning technique leveraging blockchain. “Through swarm learning we can train models locally, across a swarm of edge or distributed systems, which can share their insights.”