Data pools are growing every day and, with that growth, companies are facing increased pressure to jump in head-first.
Many startups are using data to gain an edge on their more established competitors, and executives are taking notice, with 53% reporting seeing increased competition from data-enabled startups.
An new joint study by Capgemini and EMC asked approximately 1,000 senior executives and decision-makers from across nine industries and 10 countries about the role they see big data playing in the future of their companies.
Seventy percent see big data as critical to the success of the future of their company, and 65% believe that if they do not embrace big data they risk becoming irrelevant.
A decision maker with a financial services company in Canada said, “Big data … has become something that can deliver a competitive advantage to any company. Failure to harness it or take advantage of its usefulness will result in a company lagging behind its competitors and risking becoming irrelevant in its industry.”
Other key findings from the study showed 56% of companies expect to see increased investment in big data over the next three years while 64% agreed that big data is changing the boundaries of traditional business and allowing nontraditional companies to move into their industries.
Capgemini sees opportunities for data-driven insights to drive efficiency and cost focus, drive growth of existing business streams, drive growth through market disruption and the creation of new lines of business from the monetization of data.
While the majority see big data as crucial to the future of their business, they also see the need for increased efficiency in the process.
Of those polled, 77% said they increasingly need data in real time.
And 52% see the development process constraining their ability to gain insights quickly, while slightly less than half (45%) see the development cycle for new analytics being too long to match business requirements.
“We are already in the ‘Internet of Things’ space,” a representative from a U.S. engineering company said. “We are trying to use big data analytics tools and solutions to see how we can create additional data servicing revenue streams. This part of the business can grow from $3 million to $8 million to $10 million per annum within 12 months if we can get the analytics functioning properly.”
The major issues they see blocking big data implementation are cost of analysis, storage and manipulation, as well as the time it takes to analyze the data and the shortage of specialists in the field.
