2018 – A Year In Review

I’m delighted to say 2018 was another fantastic year for Ometis, full of new opportunities and experiences in all areas as well as the return of some old favourites in terms of our calendar of events.

This was all coupled with ground-breaking development in the Qlik Platform that enabled the team to generate outstanding content and continue to deliver industry-leading consultancy services.

In terms of events, we returned to Qonnections in April for a taste of things in Qlik Sense innovation, and we haven’t been disappointed with the resulting output to date. That was followed by another successful Qlik Sense Tour event we hosted at the Belfry in July – our best yet, even if I do say so myself, thanks to our Q&A panel made up of customers utilising Qlik to its full potential. The final Qlik event of the year was the newly formed Data Revolution Tour, which replaced last year’s Visualise Your World event but I’ll come back to that in a moment.

In terms of non-Qlik events in 2018, we headed back to Big Data Analytics in May before the hectic summer was followed by our showing at IP Expo Europe in October. We were delighted to host seminar sessions at both events and hugely privileged to have Simon Kirby, Director of Financial Services Industry Solutions at Qlik, hold the session on our behalf at IP Expo.

For me though, the Ometis highlight of 2018 has to be the launch of OmetisToolkit.com. It’s our very own Qlik Enablement Platform the team here had been working hard on from the start of the year before launching the beta site at Data Revolution Tour in October.

If you haven’t heard about OmetisToolkit.com yet, it’s been designed and built by our team of experts to facilitate everyday Qlik needs. There are a number of tools available that can be easily utilised within your existing Qlik estate. You can use our tools and script generators to build enterprise-quality dashboards with minimal effort while our best practice section has a growing list of the information you need to ensure efficiency. Visitors will also find our guides, which will help you take Qlik to the next level in your organisation, and you can remain up-to-date through our latest posts to ensure you stay ahead of the game.

OmetisToolkit.com is an important platform that enables us to facilitate our customers and other Qlik Sense users to unlock the full potential of Qlik and drive true data literacy, something that’s now in all our reach thanks to another exciting year for Qlik. The Ometis team have been hugely impressed with the latest innovations and features within the Qlik Sense platform this year.

The Cognitive Engine that was launched in the Qlik Sense February 2018 release (but then improved in all subsequent releases) is an absolute game changer that clearly demonstrates Qlik’s dominance in the BI world. If you want to know more about the latest developments in Qlik Sense, make sure you review our blogs and vlogs for each of this year’s Qlik Sense updates.

It’s not just the software’s updates that have people excited about Qlik either. There were some dramatic changes within the organisation at the start of 2018, all of which were finalised with Mike Capone’s arrival as CEO back in January, only a few months before Qonnections, Qlik’s flagship annual event in April.

In the months Mike had been in charge before Qonnections kicked off in Orlando, there had already been clear signs of positive change within the upper echelons of Qlik. The new CEO’s intent was made clear when he travelled to London to meet with Elite Qlik partners almost immediately after his tenure began.

That first meeting marked the beginning of something new at Qlik. The way the organisation’s grown from humble beginnings in Sweden to rapidly becoming one of the biggest names in data analytics meant leaders were still around from Qlik’s pre-partner days. Since then the partner channel has grown its influence and how much we contribute to Qlik and it was great to see such positive engagement between the new CEO and us partners so early on. From speaking with Mike personally, I could sense his passion for the job at hand.

This was a significant appointment by Qlik’s owner, Thoma Bravo, when you understand Mike’s career and the businesses he has been in before. Mike’s background is life sciences and it’s interesting that Qlik went after someone who is relatively niche in terms of industry, however, they clearly recognised his strengths in cloud strategy and SaaS licensing. He has a deep knowledge of both and we’re excited to already see his ideas being put into practice.

The first signs of this new approach has been Qlik’s consistency is showing us lots of new, innovative functionality that is genuinely going to be delivered into the product within six-to-twelve months rather than three-to-four years, if at all. So, I’m excited for Qlik’s future and firmly believe the platform will continue to be recognised as the leading data analytics platform. This was something that was backed up by the fantastic results Qlik received in this year’s Gartner Report and BARC Survey, and long may that continue under Mike’s leadership.

To summarise, 2018 was another great year for Ometis and now we’re eager to get stuck into 2019. We’ll be sharing our BI trends and predictions for the year soon, so be sure to read that once it’s live. In the meantime, you can catch up on all the things we got up to in 2018 in the blog section of our website.

2018 – it was another great year but here’s to an even greater 2019!

As always, you can stay up-to-date with all the latest Qlik and ometis by following our blog, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube channels, where you’ll find best practice information, tips, tricks and all the latest updates.

By Ross Greig
Managing Director