Matt Florian is the Practice Director – SAP Delivery at Hakkōda, where he leads the charge in integrating SAP-focused analytics within Snowflake solutions. With over three decades of experience, Florian is known for his leadership in guiding global projects and building agile, client-focused teams to drive growth through advanced data analytics.
Matt recently shared his thoughts with us about what he sees as the top data trends emerging in 2025, what he’d like to see less of in the future, and what’s coming down the road that he finds exciting.
What’s the most important trend in our industry that you see gaining momentum in 2025, and why does it matter?
Matt Florian: First and foremost, I see 2025 as the year we finally shift our focus toward boring AI. We’ve had enough hype about all the great things we can one day achieve with AI, now let’s turn to solving boring, practical problems—that’s how you get an actual win with AI.
Companies had no shortage of lofty ideas for AI in 2024, but often there was no meaning, no business value to them. Too many projects aimed at replacing creative work, such as creating movies or writing books with AI. We don’t want those projects—they don’t have soul or meaning, and I would go so far as to say they have the potential to destroy culture.
It’s time we ask, from a business perspective, what can we actually solve with AI? Let’s get back to foundational, pragmatic issues, such as using AI as an assistant or co-engineer as you’re building and developing. A 1% change to your margin is a tangible number and value, and that’s what’s important—not a lofty goal that has no real use case or execution plan. I expect 2025 will be the year when organizations prioritize getting all their data together in order to do this, lose the hype, and just focus on being pragmatic.
What’s something you hope we’ll see less of in 2025?
Matt: I want to see less dogma. Less dogma on where you’re picking sides in the data space—what’s right, what’s wrong, and not focusing on what the business problem is and what solution is best suited to the organization facing that problem.
The “I love my solution, it’s going to work for everybody” approach has always been wrong. When you approach a problem dogmatically, you’re not truly addressing the problem. You’re just applying your worldview onto other situations, and that doesn’t work.
Often, you see big consulting firms apply the same solution to every problem they see. Then you end up having to unravel that solution because they applied their rigid view of digitalization, and it doesn’t work that way. Every business has nuances to what they do, and as professionals it’s our job to embrace those nuances and help them on that journey. You need technology that’s flexible and a pragmatic approach that seeks to solve problems over the long term.
“We’ve had enough hype of all the great things we can achieve with AI some day, now let’s turn to solving boring, practical problems—that’s how you get an actual win with AI.” —Matt Florian
What do you see around the corner that’s most exciting to you—even if it won’t come to fruition in 2025?
Matt: What’s really exciting coming down the pipe is the possibility of making data interoperable. Being able to securely get data that is meaningful, that adds value to my decision-making, that is able to inform and make better outcomes in people’s lives. This is what I see continuing to happen.
We’re looking for ways to securely share data without compromising privacy and the trust our customers and vendors have in us. There’s a lot of potential to make life better for people through unprecedented access to data. We can finally get to the place the Jetsons promised us decades ago; for example, a world in which we have robots as personal assistants. Not to do my creative work for me, but to give me the insights that I can use to form something new.
What trends do you see in how leaders are thinking about and building data teams and using data?
Matt: Data teams still remain the weak link in the chain, especially how we build them. We’re still dropping in people who don’t have the background or foundation to understand why we do what we do, where it came from, and why it’s built the way it is.
As data professionals—especially those of us who have done this for a while—we need to be better leaders who are passing on knowledge to those coming up, and not feel threatened to share our knowledge about how to do data well.
We need to break that mold of “I’m the superhero on the project and if I share my project, I won’t be the superhero anymore.” The truth is, you’ll be a superhero ten times over if you share your knowledge, teach others how to do things, and focus on the big problems rather than all problems.
When you start sharing that knowledge and teaching other people not just how to do it, but why they should do it (not just being a mechanic or “a fool with a tool”), you’re doing something that can only be done by people who’ve been in the industry for a while and have taken on a role of mentoring others. Nobody in our industry got here by themselves, nobody popped out of the womb and became a prodigy in data. Someone took you under their wing and taught you, shared knowledge with you—and it’s everyone’s responsibility to share that knowledge.
“Nobody in our industry got here by themselves…. Someone took you under their wing and taught you, shared knowledge with you—and it’s everyone’s responsibility to share that knowledge.”
For more insights and predictions for the data industry in 2025 and beyond, download our report featuring contributions from top industry executives and thought leaders.
