The Rising Adoption of Big Data

With our four reports on big data, we have contributed to the field of big data best practices and how to situate a big data strategy in your organization. The has been a lot of writing on the rise of big data, the facts about the big data adoption has seen lesser blogposts and reports. But for the second year in a row, NewVantage Partners has conducted a survey of Fortune 1000 C-Suite executives and executives with responsibility for big data. About the survey The survey defined big data as “new database management and analytical approaches developed for analyzing, storing, and manipulating large or complex data”. What’s interesting is that they conducted the same survey (the same questions and using the same methodology) as the year before. The positions the respondents hold is also contributing to why this survey is interesting. Among respondents there were 44% C-Suite executives, and 35% enterprise data function heads. One side-remark is in place however: 75% of the respondents work for financial services companies, who always had large amount of data and are at the forefront in mining the data. It’s now about Variety, Volume, and Analytical Velocity Key findings of the 2013 New Vantage Partners Big Data Executive Survey include:

1. Big Data investment is on the rise The 2013 survey indicates that 68% of executives expect that their organizations will invest greater than $1MM in 2013, with the number rising to 88% by 2016. Investments of greater than $10MM are expected to rise from $19% in 2013 to 50% by 2016. Large scale investments of greater than $50MM are projected to more than double from 6% in 2013 to 14% by 2016. 2. Executive C-suite sponsorship is perceived as critical to business adoption. Executive sponsorship is perceived as the single most important factor that will be critical to ensuring successful business adoption within large corporations, with 83% of executives citing this as a critical factor. 3. It’s now about Variety, Volume, and Analytical Velocity. One year ago, most executives cited the need to integrate a greater variety of data sources as their primary requirement. The 2013 survey indicates a near equal distribution among integrating more data sources, analyzing larger volumes of data, and analytical velocity – the speed by which organizations can obtain answers to critical business questions. 4. Accelerating Time-to-Answer (TTA) is Key to business success. The biggest factor in ensuring business success, cited repeatedly by executive respondents, is the ability to make better, fact-based decisions, and to realize this ability by accelerating the speed with which organizations can gain insight and answer critical business questions. The ability to Accelerate Time-to-Answer (TTA) is a metric for business success. 5. Organizations are looking at new roles and processes to ensure successful adoption. Large corporations are defining or considering new roles, such as establishing a Chief Data Officer, with 48% established or considering, and implementing new processes and organizational structures to ensure successful business adoption. 6. New technologies are fast becoming essential to Big Data execution and utilization. Big Data database management technologies like Hadoop, Aster, and Netezza, and Analytics solutions like SAS, Tableau, and Revolution R are gaining in adoption as corporations invest in a technology foundation to support their Big Data efforts.

How about the Chief Data/Digital Officer? We wrote on this blog that anyone  aspiring to capitalize on the potential of Big Data will have to pull some strings at the executive level. Depending on the source, the new executive function will be filled by a Chief Data Officer, Chief Decision Officer or the all-embracing Chief Digital Officer. 48% of respondents of the survey indicated that their organization now has or is actively considering establishing a Chief Data Officer, with nearly a quarter of all survey respondents indicating that their organization currently has a Chief Data Officer in place. So that supports this statement. Also, 56% reported the establishment of an executive committee with management oversight of big data initiatives, and 49% reported designation of a C-level executive as primary owner for enterprise information and big data. Considering the survey fndings, the signs that more organizations are investing in better understanding and utilization of the data through Big Data technologies are there. Which means there is money to be made from a vendors point of view, but also in better deployment. Read all about how you can unlock your Big Data Potential and deploy a Big Data strategy in your organization in our new report on Big Data. Download the report using the button below. We would also appreciate it if you used the share buttons: it will send a Twitter or LinkedIn status update (that you can edit if you like) saying you just downloaded the report and it also adds a downloadlink for your followers.