Last month, Hitachi Data Systems announced the results of a survey which contained some interesting, but not entirely surprising, results about how companies are leveraging big data solutions. Here’s a quick summary of what the survey of 200 companies with 1,000 employees or more revealed:
- 75% of UK organizations are currently investing in big data analytics, and of these, 80% are deploying solutions
- 69% of organizations investing in big data analytics do not have infrastructure in place to extract insights from their data sets in real-time which is preventing accurate data analysis
- 74% of respondents who have deployed a big data analytics solution can analyze only up to 50% of their data sets, and 33% of those with a deployed solution said they couldn’t analyze both structured and unstructured data
- 53% of IT decision-makers surveyed agree that organizations are at risk of making business-critical decisions based on old or inaccurate data
- Finally, and here’s the kicker, 60% of CIOs feel they are unable to extract the full value of their information
While the survey focused on UK companies, these results are consistent with the anecdotal stories I’m hearing from organizations globally. The good news here is that CIOs are realizing and strategically reacting to the opportunity of big data analytics. Thankfully, it appears that we’ve moved passed the cynicism of technology buzz words into actual adoption. But the survey does expose a gap in how technologists are leveraging legacy, disparate technologies and data sets.
While these gaps are generally understood, there’s a fair amount of concern on how organizations move past the gaps, particularly real-time analytics, into business opportunity.
My colleague Bob Plumridge, chief technology officer (EMEA), cites four recommendations for organizations. He outlines everything from breaking down the technology barriers to developing effective real-time data analytics:
- Evaluate your existing infrastructure: How information is stored can directly impact an organization’s ability to extract meaning in real time. Exploiting big data requires structured information management before an organization’s data starts to show true business value
- Take a strategic approach to storage: A more strategic approach to data storage will allow organizations to better utilize the data, which in turn can lead to better business performance. Organizations with effective storage strategies – that can capture data efficiently and mine it well in the first place – find it easier to unlock equity from that data. These are the organizations that find it the easiest to improve business efficiency, performance, customer service, and competitiveness
- Use velocity as a key enabler for big data input and output: Organizations need high velocity storage as a core part of their infrastructure to enable them to extract real value from their information and act on it in real time
- Deploy high-performance systems: Hitachi Data Systems offers the industry’s most scalable, high performance solutions, enabling a wide array of big data workloads to be completed faster and more cost-efficiently
Lastly, IT transformations like those occurring around big data are not just about the technology – there’s a significant “people” element that cannot be underestimated. As IT departments transition from being service-oriented cost centers into a core strategic business enablement function, every role within the IT department will evolve as well.
About the research
Hitachi Data Systems commissioned independent research agency, Vanson Bourne, to survey 200 CIOs and IT decision-makers in the UK during May 2013. The survey targeted organizations with over 1,000 employees.
