Many IT and business leaders recognize the operational and business value that the use of big data analytics can deliver to their organizations.
Still, executives often wonder how effectively their organizations are utilizing big data compared to other companies and whether other businesses are encountering similar challenges gathering and applying big data.
Teradata recently commissioned a study of 300 executives conducted by OnePoll that shines a spotlight on the differences in the use of new data and analytical techniques between businesses in the UK, France, and Germany.
Just as some vertical industries have different levels of big data and analytics maturity, businesses in these three countries are also taking decidedly different routes to big data adoption.
For instance, while more than half of the executives polled in both Germany and France say their organizations are using three or more new data types, more than half of UK businesses (51 percent) are using just a single type of new data.
Moreover, while 71 percent of French decision-makers and 70 percent of German decision-makers cite supplier and customer data among their new data sources, just 46 percent of UK executives say their companies are using these data types.
While British executives point to defining and understanding new sources of data as their top challenge, French and German leaders cite challenges with joining the new data to existing relational data (65 percent and 54 percent, respectively) along with a lack of skills or tools to analyze the data (68 percent and 65 percent).
French and German executives also track closely in the top challenges their organizations face associated with considering new data sources (data volume, the speed in which new data is being created, the variety of data). However, there are distinctive differences between the two countries in terms of the data types as well as the analytical techniques they’re actually using.
For instance, German businesses are using text files, HTML, and web logs (40 percent, 43 percent, and 35 percent) in much greater numbers than their French peers (24 percent, 18 percent, and 20 percent). German companies are also more likely to use analytical techniques such as graph analytics, text analytics, and visualization than French businesses.
