After a half decade of investment, and periods of trial and error, a near majority of business executives now report successful results from their Big Data investments. According to NewVantage Partners 5th annual Big Data Executive Survey, 48.4% of corporate executives that were surveyed indicated that their firm has achieved “measurable results” from their Big Data investments. Further, a remarkable 80.7% of executives now characterize their Big Data efforts to have been successful. This marks a sharp contrast with previous years, where investment levels had grown, but results had yet to be realized for most corporations.
NewVantage Partners survey, which was released on January 9th, reflects the viewpoints of corporate business leaders (CEO/President), data leaders (Chief Data Officer), technology leaders (Chief Information Officer), Analytics leaders (Chief Analytics Officer), and marketing leaders (Chief Marketing Officer). 50 major corporations were represented, including American Express, Bank of America, Bloomberg, Capital One, Charles Schwab, Disney, Ford Motors, General Electric (GE), MetLife, United Parcel Service (UPS), and USAA, among other leaders in financial services, the life sciences, media, and selected industry groups.
The survey highlights the challenges that major corporations still face as they seek to become more data-driven organizations:
• 85.5% of executives report that their organization has taken steps to create a data-driven culture, but only 37.7% report that these efforts have been successful to date. Among the obstacles;
• A majority of executives – 52.5% -- report that organizational impediments, including lack or organizational alignment, business and/or technology resistance, and lack of middle management adoption are factors limiting the success of Big Data efforts;
• While 60.7% of executives report that their firm has developed an enterprise Big Data strategy, 18% report that their firm lacks “a coherent data strategy”.
Organizations are moving forward however in spite of these challenges, with 95% of executives reporting that their organization has undertaken a Big Data initiative within the past five years. Investment is significant as well. 37.2% of executives report that their organization has invested more than $100MM on Big Data initiatives during the past 5 years, with a small but significant group of firms – 6.5% -- committing over $1B to Big Data investments during this period.
The survey shows that corporations have a range of Big Data initiatives underway [Figure 1]. Focus areas such as efforts to decrease expenses through operational cost efficiencies have proven to be successful (49.2%) for many firms while efforts to establish a data-driven culture remain more aspirational at this stage, with only 27.9% reporting success. Executives report that efforts to create new avenues for innovation and disruption have had the highest success rate – 64.5% started, 44.3% reporting results, 68.7% success rate.
Figure 1
In spite of the measurable successes of Big Data initiatives, corporations continue to face challenges to Big Data adoption. A number of factors were named by executives as being cultural impediments to success. [Figure 2]
Figure 2
| Cultural impediments to Big Data business adoption. | |
| Insufficient organizational alignment | 42.6% |
| Lack of middle management adoption and understanding | 41.0% |
| Business resistance or lack of understanding | 41.0% |
| Lack of a coherent data strategy | 29.5% |
| Technology resistance or lack of understanding | 27.9% |
| Inability to create a shared vision | 26.2% |
| Lack of data governance policies and practices | 21.3% |
Overall, 52.5% of executives reported that organizational impediments were the primary impediment to successful business adoption of Big Data initiatives, while 18% cited lack of a coherent data strategy as the primary factor.
Executives also noted the evolving role of the Chief Data Officer (CDO). While 55.9% of executives report that their organization has appointed a CDO, up from just 12% in 2012, a majority (56%) reported that the role has largely been focused on defensive activities, such as regulatory and compliance reporting. Going forward, a majority of executives (89.7%) believe that the Chief Data Officer role needs to be stronger -- positioned as a leadership function in driving innovation, managing data as an enterprise asset, and leading the charge to forge a data-driven culture. A small percentage of executives believe that the role is unnecessary or redundant. [Figure 3]
Figure 3
If the survey respondents were celebrating the success of Big Data programs, they have no plans to rest on their laurels. Nearly half of executives – a robust 46.6% -- believe that major disruption is on the horizon, envisioning a decade where “change is coming fast” and it may be “transform or die”. Big Data has helped fuel a transformation that is moving rapidly into capabilities including Artificial Intelligence and machine learning, and other emerging capabilities. If the 2017 survey suggests anything, it is that more change can be expected as companies learn to live in a world of proliferating data and transformative capabilities.
