In this data-driven age, marketers and PR communicators have discovered that it’s pretty easy to gather all kinds of stats about your opens, click-throughs, likes, follows and innumerable other quasi-metrics for analysis—way too many, in fact. The real challenge today is homing in on the measurement-worthy stats that offer actual insights you can use.
New research from Devo Technology (formerly Logtrust) examines what it means to be data-driven in the digital age and the importance of a unified approach to analyzing, storing and sharing operational data and insights. The issue clearly goes beyond communications—the results demonstrate the difficulties companies face when attempting to integrate data into their real-time security, operations, and business decision making.
According to the firm’s new report, What’s Data Got to Do with It?, organizations depend on operational data to drive improvements in all areas of an enterprise, but the survey reveals that data volumes are affecting productivity. Two thirds (68 percent) report their organization has so much data they struggle to make use of it all.
Challenges of accessing data:
“Respondents indicate that combining real-time streaming data with historical data would give them the ability to uncover new perspectives, insights, and opportunities. But as our research shows, there are many challenges facing organizations attempting to integrate data into their real-time security, operations, and business decision making,” said Dimitri Vlachos, VP of marketing at Devo, in a news release. “This report pinpoints the most common challenges preventing organizations from extracting operational value from their data across the enterprise.”
How is data used to make decision sin your organization?
Key report findings include:
Business, IT and security users face obstacles with enterprise-wide data access
While data is everywhere, creating a unified view of this information is challenging; 74 percent report their business is currently using different systems for real-time and historical data storage and analysis, and 95% face obstacles when trying to get a single view of data.
Data is evolving and so are the means for acting on it
Seventy-five percent of IT and business professionals agree that searching for data is challenging and time-consuming, indicating the barrier is in the approach to managing the enterprise’s data, not the people seeking access.
Organizations struggle with the negative impacts of data silos
More data is being generated by IT, sensors, devices, business applications, customer clicks, etc., resulting in more data silos; 98 percent state their organization experiences challenges trying to reduce these silos.
Different data sources provide new perspectives
Ninety-one percent agree that combining historical data and real-time data would be valuable to their organization, providing true and more actionable insights.
Benefits of having a single view of data:
Download the full report here.
The survey of 400 U.S. and European respondents was conducted by independent research firm Vanson Bourne in early 2018. Respondents included IT, security, and business decision makers, all from organizations with at least 500 employees across a range of private sectors, including financial services and telecommunications.
