Big Data strategies are delivering key benefits to organisations, despite ongoing challenges with implementation.
The majority of companies (90%) are seeing that marketing and selling campaigns are much more effective, while 88% are seeing or anticipate increased revenue.
Despite the success and anticipated success that the study reveals, it is telling that many of these projects are independent, with one in five having a project limited to a single department or area.
However, with spending on Big Data Management projects set to increase in the next three years from 18% to 25%, this may see it more widely deployed.
The benefits come despite 92% having faced obstacles to their Big Data projects, highlighting the importance of value in data and the need to improve how it is deployed and managed.
Of the challenges faced, an insufficient existing infrastructure was cited by 32% as the major obstacle, with other obstacle listed as; organisational complexity (27%), security and compliance concerns (26%), a lack of budget and resources (25%) and a lack of visibility into information and processes (25%).
Despite these challenges, the CA Technologies study reveals that the benefits are greatly outweighing the obstacles.
The majority of large organisations (84%), have already, or plan to, implement a Big Data project within the next year. This is due to managers wanting to improve customer experience (60%), acquiring customers (54%) and wanting to keep up with competition (41%).
David Hodgson, GM, Mainframe, CA Technologies, said: "This research uncovers the promise of Big Data and its application to a broad range of organisational priorities.
"While organisations face challenges in tackling complexities associated with implementation efforts, the results overwhelmingly demonstrate that companies are committed to developing and deploying fully integrated Big Data strategies. By overcoming the obstacles, companies can successfully compete in the application economy."
One of the key benefits of Big Data for companies, is its value as an element of digital transformation. Those who had already seen or anticipate increased revenue also saw an improved competitive positioning (92%), a greater ability to provide new services or products (94%) and were able to deliver more effectively targeted marketing campaigns (90%)
Other findings from the study revealed that 98% believe that major investments are required for the Big Data projects to work well. While 56% saw scaling existing projects to address more data sources as a major priority.
The study, The State of Big Data Infrastructure: Benchmarking Global Big Data Users to Drive Future Performance, was conducted by Vanson Bourne which questions 1,000 IT managers in 11 countries from a range of sectors.
