The start of a new year is a time to reset and refocus. It’s also when the reality of what’s coming—new regulations, pressures and opportunities—really starts to sink in.
At BizCubed, we’re fortunate to work across industries grappling with urgent and transformative challenges: data-driven sustainability, the rise of AI, and government shifts toward sovereign procurement.
Here’s what I believe will shape the year ahead—and how you can prepare.
1. More businesses will realise their AI success hinges on their data
Obviously, the big question for businesses in 2025 is not “Should we adopt AI?” That ship has sailed. The real question is: “Is our data ready to support these initiatives?”
The success of AI hinges on your data. Poorly structured, inconsistent, or siloed data are the causes of failed or half-implemented AI projects and can easily derail AI initiatives before they even begin.
In 2025, getting your data house in order becomes critical. That means creating an operational data ecosystem that promotes quality, consistency, and transparency—essential ingredients for any AI initiative. Without this foundation, even the most advanced AI tools will fail to deliver results.
Consider the critical nature of many AI projects and programs. AI now supports functions ranging from digital services and customer-centric marketing to regulatory compliance and high-level decision-making. A solid data foundation ensures these initiatives not only succeed but also scale effectively—with strong security and governance, efficient resource use, and a clear path to achieving ROI. This comprehensive approach is key to sustainable success.
This year, the organisations that focus on their data ecosystems will be the ones that unlock AI’s true potential—and gain a significant edge in the process.
“For businesses, the opportunity lies in building data pipelines tailored to their unique context — clean, representative, and enriched with meaningful features.” – Armand Rui, VP Product, AI Platform, IBM
2. ESG reporting gets serious: no silver bullets, just hard work
Elements of mandatory reporting have already begun in Australia, and compliance can be complicated. Organisations faced with stricter regulations and greater scrutiny of sustainability claims cannot afford to rely on ad-hoc solutions or incomplete processes.
Nobody has the time to waste getting sustainability wrong – or getting the ESG efforts right but the reporting wrong.
2025 will be the year when more businesses wake up to the fact that there’s no magic bullet for ESG reporting—just smarter data and better processes. The businesses that will outcompete will be the ones able to focus on improving their business and data processes, so they are agile enough to meet emerging market ESG demands.
The rest? They’ll be ‘too busy fighting crocodiles to drain the swamp’ – pushing data uphill to meet reporting requirements and spending their ESG budgets on reporting compliance rather than actual ESG improvements.
Putting this trend into practice involves mapping out existing data processes to identify gaps in the way they support ESG reporting requirements. It involves aligning ESG efforts with business operations and creating systems resilient enough to adapt to future compliance needs.
Simplifying and streamlining ESG reporting will not only reduce compliance costs but also free up sustainability teams to focus on making better ESG decisions each day, rather than firefighting to meet regulatory and other reporting deadlines.
Critically, this shift will position your business for long-term success in a marketplace where transparency and trust are increasingly prioritised.
3. ETL migration in 2025: what’s next for open-source data integration?
Migration will be a hot topic in 2025 for businesses that have relied on Talend and Pentaho’s open-source community editions. Recent changes mean some users will be wondering how easy it would be to migrate to something else – and what that something else could be.
The good news is that of course there are great options whether the business needs to source another open-source solution, move to a licensed version of a current tool or find another licensed option. An open-source option that will feel quite familiar to Pentaho users is Apache Hop. Built from Pentaho’s open-source code, Hop offers similar functionality and a user-friendly interface—making it a straightforward migration path for Pentaho users, and an open-source option for all ETL tools.
For businesses needing an open-source replacement for Talend’s open-source edition, Hop provides a flexible ETL alternative that supports similar workflows, offers extensive plugin capabilities, and can be tailored to fit existing data pipelines.
When deciding whether to invest in a licensed version of a current tool or migrate elsewhere, the challenge isn’t just picking a replacement—it’s also about ensuring continuity and efficiency in data operations. With nearly two decades of experience in ETL and data integration—including deep knowledge of Pentaho — BizCubed has seen firsthand how shifts in the open-source and data tool landscape impact business decisions, and their follow-on impacts on operations and the data ecosystem.
In fact, our own roots in the open-source community—and our core value of ‘openness’—mean that we consider and incorporate open-source tools, solutions, and standards as a fundamental part of our approach.
The right choice for your organisation depends on a broad range of factors, such as timing, budget, prioritisation of the related workflows, scalability, interoperability, data strategy and business values.
We’ll be posting a more detailed blog on this topic and are already helping customers take the next step that’s right for them.
If mergers, acquisitions, adoption of new technology solutions, business growth or other significant change mean data migration and integration are on your to do list, now’s the time to explore your options.
4. Governments are insourcing — and looking local
For years, governments leaned heavily on Big 4 consulting firms to drive their digital transformation. Burnt by headline-grabbing experiences with the Big 4, government is taking a new look at procuring from sovereign small-to-medium enterprises and a way to support their
journey to building their own digital capabilities. This shift represents an opportunity for SMEs to step up and provide high-quality, scalable solutions.
At BizCubed, we know from experience that aligning with government’s insourcing agenda leads to meaningful partnerships. The demand for local, trusted providers who can deliver results without the Big 4 price tag is only going to grow.
In light of this, in 2024 we became a founding member of the Australian Digital Delivery Alliance (ADDA).
The two primary aims of ADDA are to:
- Promote new ways for the government to deliver successful digital products that create public value
- Support Australian-owned SME digital firms to access government opportunities through collaboration and advocacy
The breadth of the partnerships ensures that all aspects typically sourced from a Big4 consultancy are covered. This initiative is actively helping the government identify and collaborate with local providers who bring not just technical expertise but a real commitment to solving problems sustainably.
Final thoughts: fix data to accelerate innovation
The businesses that succeed this year won’t be the ones searching for perfect solutions to appear. The winners will the ones getting their data in order to support their decisions, innovation and projects. They’ll be the ones staying ahead of regulatory and market shifts.
The trends shaping 2025—AI, ESG, open-source migrations, and government insourcing—all have one thing in common: data is at their core.
If you’re serious about aligning with these trends, now is the time to act. ESG reporting won’t simplify itself, AI won’t fix bad data, and data migration decisions won’t get easier the longer you wait.
Contact us now to turn these trends into opportunities.
Rebecca Zeus
Rebecca Zeus is CEO and Director of Sales at BizCubed. A chemical engineer by training and a Lean Six Sigma Blackbelt, she has built a reputation as an expert in process design and implementation. Most recently, she led a company-wide initiative to formalise and certify BizCubed’s Information Security Management System. She is also a mother of four, an avid volunteer, a non-profit board member, and a crafting-enthusiast.