Both marketing and IT executives believe that big data is a key competitive differentiator and will be core to implementing a more customer-centric business culture, according to a new study conducted by the CMO Council in partnership with SAS.
The study found that 61% of marketing executives and 60% of IT executives believe that big data presents both an opportunity and an obstacle, since many companies are struggling to manage the complexity, flow, aggregation and analysis of massive amounts of structured and unstructured data flowing in to their organizations.
In addition, 46% of marketing executives and 50% of IT executives agree that big data has added complexity to developing actionable customer profiles. Further, 52% of marketing heads and 45% of IT leaders believe functional silos block aggregation of data across the organization, making it difficult to achieve a true customer-centric culture.
Marketing and IT executives, however, disagreed about the focus of big data. While 39% of IT executives believe that big data has primarily focused importance on IT systems and data availability, 52% of marketers believe that big data has identified business opportunities. This disagreement shows where both marketing and IT professionals believe their departments fit on the continuum of customer data and big data for the organization.
The study concludes that regardless of their differences, both marketing and IT leaders agree that big data is a huge opportunity and a component to creating a customer-centric business culture.
Big data is definitely a hot topic. Cisco’s Connected World Technology Report (CCWTR) surveyed IT professionals worldwide and 60% of the respondents believed big data can help businesses and countries improve decision making and global competitiveness; respondents in China (90%), Mexico (85%), India (82%), Brazil (79%) and Argentina (78%) were the most confident in the benefits of big data projects.
These studies focused not only on telecommunication service providers but on businesses generally, showing that big data is gaining importance among executives. In Cisco’s survey, 38% of respondents said that although they have a big data solution, they needed a strategic plan to take advantage of it.
What else is happening in the market:
- Tableau Software has filed a registration statement for a proposed initial public offering (IPO)of shares of its Class A common stock. The number of shares and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined. Fredrik Tunvall, Ovum infrastructure management analyst, noted that the move will not be lost on Tableau’s closest rivals who have also created their own data visualization solutions. The data analytics and visualization company, which started out as small but promising startup, offering patented data visualization software, has certainly benefited from the heightened interest in big data. Tunvall also said that the money raised from an IPO will help Tableau continue to invest in R&D. Ovum believes Tableau’s challenge will be to maintain its 80% and greater year-over-year growth that it has returned consistently over the last several years under the greater scrutiny of shareholders.
- cVidya Networks, provider of revenue intelligence analytics solutions for communication service providers, announced that it has partnered with Neustar, a provider of real-time data insights and intelligence. The partnership’s goal is to supply enhanced revenue intelligence solutions to North American CSPs. Their solutions, the companies said, enable CSPs to retain customers, reduce risk and identify future business opportunities without the costs of a large revenue intelligence department.
The RCR Wireless News telecom analytics series provides weekly insights on trends, new products and other topics that touch on the advantages and  monetization opportunities of analytics tools for telecom operators, including big data, business intelligence, customer experience analysis and management, business analytics and network analytics.
