Businesses may understand the value of Big Data, but only four per cent are able to extract the full value from information they hold.
While four per cent are leading the way and succeeding, the vast majority are failing.
Many organisations (36%) simply lack the tools and skills needed to get value from their information.
The result of this is that 43% of European and North American companies are achieving little benefit at all from their information. Of greater concern is the 23% who derive no benefit whatsoever.
Elizabeth Bramwell, director, Iron Mountain, told CBR: "The fact that only 4% are maximising the value of the information they hold is not because the other 96% aren’t interested, it’s because it’s difficult to do.
"Those that are good at this will gain the competitive advantage, and those that don’t embrace it will be consigned to the likes of the Blockbusters and the Kodak’s that just didn’t see what was coming and got left behind."
Research from PwC and Iron Mountain (Information Value Index) measured how well businesses in different countries manage their information for competitive advantage. The average score of 50.1, out of a perfect score of 100 indicates that businesses have a lot more to do to achieve data success.
Disappointingly for the UK, it scored 46.9, despite 64% of UK business leaders believe they are already making the most of their information.