CIOs Lead Collaborative Team in Growing Big Data and Analytics Initiatives – IDG Enterprise

IDG Enterprise, an enterprise technology media company composed of CIO, Computerworld, CSO, DEMO, InfoWorld, ITworld and Network World, announces the release of the 2015 Big Data and Analytics research, which spotlights an increase in the number of deployed data-driven projects over the past year and reveals that many organizations are still planning implementations, as 83% of organizations categorize structured data initiatives as a high or critical priority.

IT decision-makers (ITDMs) also provided insight into organizational data and analytics purchase plans, security concerns and the top vendor attributes when evaluating solutions in 2015.

Big Data – A Year Later
Deployment of data-driven projects has increased by 125% in the past year, with 27% of organizations already in deployment. The momentum continues with an additional 42% of organizations still planning implementation.

As more ITDMs deploy data initiatives, it provides clarity into the amount of data that needs to be managed. Similar to 2014, organizations are currently managing an average of 167.3TB of data, and this amount is expected to increase by 48% over the next 12 to 18 months. The largest contributors to this data growth are customer databases (63%), emails (61%), and transactional data (53%).

In 2014, with big data showing the potential to create cross-function business opportunities, CEOs were the leading supporter of data-driven initiatives and CIOs were taking the strategic lead. Today, the CEO is still involved however, many individuals collaborate during the decision process, including the CIO (52%), CEO (43%), IT/networking staff (37%), CFO (36%), and IT steering committee (35%). At the end of the day, the CIO still takes the strategic lead and is in charge of data-driven decisions. Even with the CEO’s support, organizations are facing challenges with their big data initiatives, from limited budget (47%), to legacy issues (40%), and limited skilled employees that can analyze data (38%).

“Big data and analytics continues to be a priority and a growth area for organizations. CIOs are deploying data-driven tools that help advance the business through strategic and timely decision-making,” said Brian Glynn, chief revenue officer, IDG Enterprise. “As deployment moves towards mainstream, tech vendors have the opportunity to elevate their customers’ initiatives and potentially alleviate organizational and staffing challenges by providing solutions that integrate into legacy systems and provide an ease of use.”

Big Data Balancing Act: Budget and Skillset
Even though ITDMs list limited budgets as a challenge for big data and analytics initiatives, more than one third (36%) will be increasing their budgets allocated for data-driven initiatives this year, and an additional 42% of organizations will keep budgets the same.

This translates into enterprise organizations (those with more than 1,000 employees) spending an average of $13.8 million per year on big data and SMB organizations (less than 1,000 employees) spending $1.6 million.

The top reasons for investing align with the top areas positively impacted by the initiatives, which include improved decision-making, improved forecasting, and quicker decision-making. Over the next year, the top areas dollars will be spent are on data analytics, visual dashboards and data mining.

With increasing data, budgets, and goals, organizations are evaluating current staff skills with future needs. Business analysts are currently in place at the majority of organizations (59%), however it is one of the top roles that organizations are looking to hire (23%), tied with data architects. 20% of organizations are looking to hire data analysts and 19% are planning to bring on data visualizers, all of which align with the areas budget will be spent.

Security and Big Data Vendors
Even though 77% of ITDMs said that data security has rarely or never been compromised due to an influx of data, storage and accessibility still have an inherent need for security measures. One way organizations are protecting sensitive data is through restricting access to limited individuals (76%), which has drastically increased year-over-year from 52% in 2014.

Additionally, half (53%) of ITDMs state that their organization encrypts sensitive data and 40% store sensitive data on-premise (non-cloud). Confidence in security solutions continues to rise, with 66% stating that existing security solutions are providing adequate security, compared to 44% in 2012.

When ITDMs evaluate data and analytics vendors, the leading criteria varies for enterprise and SMB organizations. Integration into legacy infrastructure is the top enterprise criteria, followed by the vendor’s ability to meet security requirements as well as ease of use and scalability. With smaller staffs, it is not surprising that SMB organizations primarily focus on ease of use, integration into legacy systems, and support and services. While there is always room for improvement, 46% of ITDMs feel that scalability is excellent/good, followed by vendor’s ability to meet security requirements (43%), and support and service (40%). Over the past year, ITDMs perception of improvement in integration into legacy systems and ease of use has increased, with fewer respondents giving those attributes poor marks year-over-year.

More Key Findings:
Over the past year, the number of organizations with deployed/implemented data-driven projects has increased by 125%.

Enterprise organizations invest more in data-driven initiatives than SMBs; $13.8 million compared to $1.6 million.

Organizations place greater priority on structured data initiatives compared to unstructured data, as 32% of organizations state that managing unstructured data is not on their to-do list.

Majority of organizations will invest in data analytics as they expect to gain the most business value from its solutions.

Confidence in security solutions and products for company data rises, increasing from 49% in 2014 to 66% this year.)

While security confidence increases, organizations also realize they must restrict access to sensitive data.

Business analysts and data architects are hot. Organizations are looking for employees with these skill sets, followed by data analysts and data visualizers.

Data and analytics vendors must be able to integrate into existing infrastructure, provide ease of use and be able to meet security requirements.

About 2015 Big Data and Analytic Research
Results in this report are based on 1,139 respondents who reported their organizations are currently implementing, planning or considering big data projects. Respondents are IT and security decision-makers across multiple industries that visit IDG Enterprise brands (CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, ITworld and Network World), IDG UK brands (CIO UK, Computerworld UK and Techworld UK), or IDG Australia/New Zealand brands (CIO Australia, CMO Australia, CIO New Zealand and Computerworld New Zealand).