As the ICAEW’s Data Analytics Community continues to go from strength to strength, Ian Pay, Head of Data Analytics and Tech, shares some of his favourite content and activities from the year, and gives some clues as to what’s coming in 2025…
More milestones
It seems that the appetite for Data Analytics amongst our members is ceaseless. Having been the first community to pass the 30,000 members mark last year, just a few weeks ago we broke the 40,000 barrier – again the first community to do so.
We’re joined now at the top of the tree by the Excel Community, with whom we’ve run a number of joint webinars this year and will continue to do so on topics that overlap. With Python becoming generally available in Excel, and RegEx functions introduced too, there is an increasing range of advanced analytics capabilities in Excel that tap into the interests of both communities. It gives me great pride to be responsible for ICAEW’s two largest communities, though it also brings a bit of friendly competition – the Excel Community continues to grow rapidly so on the Data Analytics side of the fence we’ll need to watch out!
We followed up last year’s Analytics Live with our 2024 event AI & Analytics Live, exploring the role that data plays at the intersection of AI and ESG. And it was a sellout! If you couldn’t make it you can read our recap; I’m sure we’ll be exploring more of these themes heading into 2025.
Our partnership with The OR Society has continued, with our participation in their Analytics Summit, held in Birmingham in May, and their support and presence at AI & Analytics Live. And we leveraged ICAEW’s links with CIPFA to host a joint webinar exploring the role of Power BI in the public sector.
Our content
Perhaps unsurprisingly, our content this year has continued to tilt towards Artificial Intelligence. But there’s been plenty of room for other topics along the way. Programming for accountants has proven a key topic to explore, with Edward Franklin’s article exploring how to get started our most viewed article of the year. Articles exploring data storage, data visualisation and the Companies House API (part 1 and part 2) were also popular.
Meanwhile, articles on AI ethics, the role of AI in Internal Audit, and a practical guide to building a GPT ensured we kept our members up to date on some of the important talking points in the world of AI. From Microsoft’s presentation at AI & Analytics Live, it is clear that being on top of your data is absolutely critical to making the most of AI capabilities, and so in 2025 we’ll be diving further into Data Governance, Data Quality and other best practices when working with data.
On the webinar front we’ve set some impressive records, twice surpassing 2000 registrations and achieving consistently high feedback scores. We completed our Power Tools series with Power Pivot and Power Apps, dived into Microsoft Fabric and spent more time exploring Power BI, which has been a popular topic since the community began and continues to draw sizeable numbers. We also looked at how the CDO role interacts with CFOs, introduced process mining, and of course no 2024 webinar series would be complete without covering prompt engineering.
Don’t forget – you can find all of our previous articles and on-demand webinars on our website.
Community members can also join our Data Analytics & Tech LinkedIn group to network, share ideas and ask questions. Along with links to additional resources, you can use this group to discuss areas of interest with experts and your peers.
Data has also featured heavily across ICAEW in the last year, with a notable presence as part of our recent campaigns on Cyber Security and AI. If you weren’t at AI & Analytics Live to see my deepfake, you can read all about it here! We covered data as part of our ABCD+ series for ICAEW Student Insights, and our research exploring the Evolution of Mid Tier Accountancy Firms highlighted how the most significant change to clients’ needs expected in the next three years is greater access to current or live data.
2025 – what’s on the horizon?
We have some incredibly exciting projects already in the pipeline for 2025, and we can’t wait to share them with you. We’re in the planning stages of the DA Community’s first piece of thought leadership, as well as working closely with the Audit and Assurance Faculty on a report 8 years in the making. There will be new and exciting learning opportunities too, for students and members alike.
Given the growing importance of data governance and data quality in the AI space, we’ll be focusing on these crucial topics in the early part of 2025 and plan to take you on a journey through the adoption of analytics across our webinars and articles. But there will also be plenty of time for more technical explorations – the topic of APIs remains popular and we’ll be lifting the lid on more of the tools and solutions that can support the delivery of high quality analytics.
We’re keen to make the community more interactive for you too, so we’ll be bringing more Q&As to give you the chance to ask our expert contributors your burning questions. Taking the lead from the Excel Community’s successful “Tips and Tricks Live” webinar series, we’re looking to deliver something similar for Power BI and will be seeking your questions to answer and problems to solve, live and unrehearsed. Our newsletters, upcoming webinars page and the recently introduced monthly multi-event emails will be the best place to start to keep up to speed on what’s available to book.
And as for Analytics Live? We’re also planning something a bit different, more interactive, hands-on and practical – watch this space!
Where could we go in 2025 – is 50,000 members too ambitious?! The community remains totally free for everyone, including non-ICAEW members, so please do encourage your friends and colleagues to join here, and if you like any of our content don’t be afraid to share it on your favourite social media platform. Of course, we’re always open to ideas and contributions from the community – if you’ve got something you’d like to talk about, or would like us to talk about, do get in touch with me at ian.pay@icaew.com.