As oil was the commodity that powered the success of the Industrial Revolution, so data is exponentially powering the age of digital transformation and connectivity, referred to as the “Fourth Industrial Revolution.” Remember when data stored in gigabytes seemed large? Due to the astonishing accumulation of data in our connected world we are now measuring the global digital datasphere in terms of zettabytes (ZB), which are the equivalent of one trillion gigabytes, and yottabytes, which are 1,000 zettabytes (no, this is not a Star Wars spin-off). In fact, the annual size of the global digital datasphere is predicted to grow from an estimated 44ZB in 2020 to 175ZB in 2025.

Bringing this closer to our own operating reality, on average each day in 2020, 306 billion emails were sent, and five billion searches were made. I’ll do the math for you: That’s nearing 112 trillion emails in one year! The data growth rates on all things digital is staggering and in many instances, business sectors are only gaining momentum.

The print industry has acutely experienced the pace of change wrought by the attrition of technology and digital transformation. Like any great industry, print has disaggregated in some segments (remember carbon interleaved forms?) and reaggregated in other, chiefly digital, segments. A key result of the growth in digital capabilities from customer-facing storefronts to connected production devices is the rampant accumulation of data. More than any other era in the print industry’s lifespan, companies have access to massive amounts of actionable data.