Almost All Companies Better Understand Their Customers Thanks To Big Data

Companies’ big data strategies are delivering major benefits despite implementation challenges in implementation, a CA Technologies study has found.

One of the most noticeable stats in the study – titled The State of Big Data Infrastructure: Benchmarking Global Big Data Users to Drive Future Performance – is that nine in 10 organisations are experiencing or expect to see, more effective targeted marketing and selling campaigns

Obstacles

Additionally, 88 percent see or anticipate increased revenue. These benefits are impressive despite 92 percent of respondents citing obstacles to their big data projects.

The study also revealed the top five major obstacles to overcome for successful big data project implementation. These include: insufficient existing infrastructure (32 percent), organisational complexity (27 percent), security/compliance concerns (26 percent), lack of budget/resources (25 percent), and a lack of visibility into information and processes (25 percent).

Yet the benefits clearly outweigh the obstacles as 84 percent of large organisations have already, or plan to, implement a big data project within the next year. Managers cite improving customer experience (60 percent), acquiring customers (54 percent) and keeping up with competition (41 percent) as critical business factors and major drivers for deploying big data projects.

David Hodgson, general manager, Mainframe, CA Technologies, said: “This research uncovers the promise of big data and its application to a broad range of organisational priorities. While organisations face challenges in tackling complexities associated with implementation efforts, the results overwhelmingly demonstrate that companies are committed to developing and deploying fully integrated Big Data strategies. By overcoming the obstacles, companies can successfully compete in the application economy.”

According to the survey, businesses see big data as an important aspect of digital transformation in the application economy. Respondents report already seeing, or anticipating, benefits of increased revenue (88 percent), improved competitive positioning (92 percent), ability to provide new products or services (94 percent), and more effective targeted marketing campaigns (90 percent).

Other key findings include:

· Virtually all (98 percent) respondents acknowledge that major investments are required to allow their big data projects to work well
· More than half (56 percent) of respondents see scaling existing projects to address more data sources as a major priority for their big data projects
· The majority of big data projects are independent, with one in five organisations having a project limited to a single department or area.

The amount of data organisations have has increased by an average of 16 percent in the last two years, which is predicted to rise by a further 24 percent in the next two years. The benefits of implementing big data projects as a way to succeed in the application economy ultimately outweighs the challenges for businesses. On average, respondents have experienced improvements of up to 21 percent due to successful big data projects.

Vanson Bourne conducted the CA Technologies-sponsored study of 1,000 IT managers in 11 countries from a range of sectors, including retail, financial services, banking, telecom, insurance, and government. The key elements of the study focused on the complexities and challenges organizations are facing with their Big Data infrastructure and environment.

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