Exasol Survey: Nearly Two-Thirds of Analytics Projects Jeopardized Due to Poor Access to the Right Data
National survey examines how businesses use data to make critical business decisions and the obstacles that stand in their way.
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According to the 2019 Data Decisions Survey from analytics database provider Exasol, 57 percent of organizations have suffered because of slow or poor access to the right data, resulting in an inability to access real-time analytics and inaccurate business intelligence (BI). Full results of the survey highlight how organizations are leveraging data to make more intelligent and productive business decisions.
Of more than 1,000 IT decision makers surveyed, 80 percent reported that data guides organizational decision making more than half the time, yet significant performance, security, and forecasting challenges impede the ability to improve data strategy.
The Biggest Barriers: Security, Costs, and Performance
The survey revealed that data security (39 percent), high costs (38 percent), and slow data performance (31 percent) were the biggest obstacles to data strategy. For respondents leveraging cloud data warehouse solutions, including Oracle and Amazon Redshift, slow data query performance (30 percent) and lack of support for hybrid deployments (23 percent) were the biggest issues faced when configuring their solution.
“Demand for data is exploding, and new technologies, such as cloud analytics, MPP, or in-memory analytics make it feasible to realize a data-driven company,” said Mathias Golombek, CTO, Exasol. “However, organizational challenges, combined with a complex technology landscape and limited legacy systems, are holding organizations back from realizing the full potential of their data. These findings demonstrate an industry ready for data-driven change without access to the tools they need to achieve it.”
Vendor Lock-In, Data Analytics, and Performance
When asked what they would like to change about their organizations’ data strategy, respondents indicated improved ease-of-use when integrating data from various sources for better analytics performance (44 percent), more forward-looking analytics insights (such as recommendation, predictions, forecasts (43 percent)), and for their organizations to make data ready for analysis at a faster rate (37 percent). In the meantime, more than 60 percent of respondents feel stifled by vendor lock-in, which may be holding them back from their data goals.
Additional survey findings include:
- More than 80 percent believe data should power more decision making
- Data is mainly being used to inform decision making to better understand customer behavior and expectations (54 percent), to support strategic planning initiatives (46 percent), and to improve business processes and operations (44 percent)
- The business areas most in need of a data-driven strategy shift include sales (37 percent), operations (37 percent), and marketing (33 percent)
- A quarter of organizations have appointed a chief data officer or chief analytics officer to ensure wider organizational use of data and analytics
About the Survey
Exasol conducted a survey of more than 1,000 U.S. professionals involved in the purchasing decisions at their organization to better understand how their companies are leveraging data to make more intelligent and productive business decisions. Job titles of those surveyed included developer, engineer, CTO, CIO, and other IT positions. Respondents’ organizations spanned the telecommunications, healthcare, retail and consumer, education, and finance verticals, among others.