More than 85% of Fortune 1000 companies have big data initiatives underway, with more than half focusing on gleaning customer insights and bolstering customer experience using big data analytics, according to a new survey from NewVantage Partners.
The consulting firm, which helps companies benefit from big data, surveyed Fortune 1000 C-suite and federal government executives at organizations including American Express, Bank of America, CitiGroup, GE and the Department of Defense to uncover how these firms are wrangling the data stream pouring in from the Web, social networks, devices and other systems using big data analytics.
Key findings from the survey include:
- Executives name 17 different business functions as key drivers behind big data projects
- Companies say the most important goal is the ability to analyze diverse data sources and new data types
- 80% of the respondents report that big data projects reach across more than one line of business or function
- Almost half of the executives say they don’t have employees with the right skills to take on analytics projects
- 70% of respondents say they plan to hire data scientists in the future for their big data projects but are challenged to find employees with the necessary skills
While companies spawned from the dot.com era have long been corralling data to gain insights into their customers (anyone who has ever been recommended a book from Amazon that perfectly matches her tastes knows this), Harvard Business Review (HBR) notes that big data also holds promise for traditional companies.
“We’ve seen big data used in supply chain management to understand why a car maker’s defect rates in the field suddenly increased, in customer service to continually scan and intervene in the health care practices of millions of people and in planning and forecasting to better anticipate online sales on the basis of a data set of product characteristics,” HBR notes.
But these types of big data applications will require major shifts within organizations. And that means that the success of the new “data-driven economy” will require as much talent to tap into data from various sources to harness “what wasn’t known or anticipated, as was rewarded historically for those able to optimize what was known and could be acted on to deliver on market expectations,” according to a report by KPMG.
“Recognizing that data is increasingly driving competitive insights, operational scale and compliance complexities, organizations are embracing wholesale change in how information is accessed, interpreted, reported and applied,” according to KPMG.
To be successful in this new economic paradigm, KPMG notes that corporate leaders need:
- To be open to new processes. Focus first on desired business outcomes and then identify the big data that can drive these goals.
- To apply analytics to data that’s defined as being relevant to business outcomes.
- To manage and measure employees based on how well they use data to achieve the desired business results.
