More than half of organizations still spend the majority of their time in unproductive data preparation and quality assurance processes rather than in applying business analytics to gain the most value from their data, according to a recent benchmark study by Ventana Research. The study involved input from more than 2,850 organizations.
Despite the obvious value of analytics and the ready availability of analytics tools, the study found that the application of analytics remains a spreadsheet-based activity in 88 percent of organizations. Yet these same organizations report issues with data accuracy and timeliness of analytics, and find themselves at a competitive disadvantage against the most mature organizations that are using predictive analytics to help determine future outcomes and mobile technologies to simplify access to analytics and metrics.
The study found that business and IT organizations use a variety of analytics, but they have not yet automated many of the underlying data integration and analytics operations needed to generate metrics. Moreover, the study found that businesses largely are not acting to improve their processes. The research indicates that that only a third of organizations are planning to change the way they generate and apply analytics in the next 12 to 18 months.
What organizations desire most is the ability to search for relevant analytics and metrics that answer business questions. Businesses also want to be able to drill down into the causes of situations by performing root-cause analysis and to be able to collaborate in reviewing analytics. These are capabilities not readily available to organizations that rely heavily on spreadsheets as analytics tools or data sources. Not surprisingly, the research finds that a quarter of those organizations are not happy with their existing technology.
