| The rise of the cloud data platform As impressive as the enterprise’s progress toward a data-driven economy was last year, the big bang we’ve been expecting from big data is still ahead. Getty Images The year 2020 is seared into CIOs’ collective memory as one of the most cataclysmic, consequential years this century. But while the pandemic helped drive digital transformation far beyond anyone’s expectations, make no mistake: This was not the perfect storm we’ve all envisioned. If anything, the unprecedented wave of data-driven deployments last year shined a light on shortcomings in existing frameworks that are muting big data’s potential. Many organizations, for example, have been frustrated by how long it can take just to prepare data before analysts and scientists can even start a new project.