Editor’s note: We’re hearing today from Unity Technologies, which offers a development platform for gaming, architecture, film and other industries. Here, Director of Engineering and Data Sampsa Jaatinen shares valuable insights for modern technology decision makers, whatever industry they’re in.
In addition to the very real negative impact on every person around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic is driving business disruptions and closures at an unprecedented scale. Enormous government stimulus programs are resulting in explosions in fiscal deficits, regulators are relaxing capital constraints on banks and central banks are supporting economic stability with a range of interest rate cuts and other stimulus measures.
Fast-growing software companies are building data applications for a variety of uses, from marketing apps that provide customer insights, to IoT apps that handle device feedback, and data analytics apps that process both historical and near real-time data. But developers often face obstacles when building, designing, and supporting applications that need to parse large volumes of information.
“Build vs Buy” is an important decision every technology strategist has to make. With the rise of open source and the wealth of freely available software, organizations have the flexibility to build custom solutions when off-the-shelf solutions don’t directly address their needs. In the domain of enterprise data platforms, many organizations have leveraged the open-source ecosystem to build tailored solutions, expending a lot of resources in the process.
If “necessity is the mother of invention,” COVID-19 forced many businesses around the world to rethink their digital transformation, data and analytics strategies. Out of every crisis, there will be opportunities. Although the current pandemic has certainly acted as a black swan event in some cases impeding progress, it has, nonetheless, accelerated several of the trends already pushing toward a digital future.
