Big Data and analytics are having a significant impact of businesses revenue as its potential is realised.
The market area with the most potential for Big Data use is retail, with executives identifying it as a driver of innovation, particularly in its ability to allow the discovery of new product offers.
The survey by Forbes Insights on behalf of Teradata found that 90% of organisations have made medium to high levels of investment, with a third viewing their investment as "very significant".
While businesses may be piling more money into getting value out of their data, many challenges remain. The survey found that more than half found it difficult to adopt a data-driven culture.
Other challenges that are typically raised as an obstacle are difficulties with data integration, the skills gap and cost of investment.
However, the Teradata research appears to suggest that despite the concerns, businesses are pushing ahead with Big Data strategies.
The companies that are most advanced in this area are exploring a number of data types, with location data the most popular and collected by over half of respondents.
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Text data is also frequently being explored, with unstructured data like email messages. As unstructured data amounts grow significantly, this will likely be a rich area to exploit.
While Big Data is being seen as a driver of innovation (54%), many are also monetising data for sale to external companies (40%). This area could be impacted by recent trends from a younger generation which is rejecting data sharing according to a KPMG survey.
Chris Twogood, VP, product and services marketing, Teradata, said: "It’s exciting to see that companies using big data technologies are realising the impact that’s been promised for some time.
"Companies aren’t just committed to investing in big data analytics; most companies are seeing a material impact as a result of that investment. One out of five survey respondents (21 per cent) agreed that big data analytics is the single most important path to competitive advantage, while 38 per cent called it a top five issue."
Teradata questioned attitudes to Big Data and analytics among 316 senior data and IT decision-makers across six industries around the globe.
