Increasing competitive edge is top Big Data driver

Of those surveyed at Talend Connect London 2013, which polled the views and opinions of directors, department heads, IT managers and data architects, 34% referenced that staying ahead of their competitors is big data’s biggest benefit, while driving revenue growth was stated by 29% of those polled. Tactical drivers of big data adoption like product and service development costs and growing data volumes lagged far behind, with 12% referencing them respectively.

According to Yves de Montcheuil, vice president, marketing, Talend, “organisations increasingly appreciate that the value data can bring to their business is not just in managers meeting tactical goals through carrying out specific projects – important though that is. More critical still is the ability of the business to leverage data to meet overarching strategic objectives such as driving business advantage or delivering enhanced profitability.
“Some businesses use it to gain insight into the behaviour of customers and prospects, thereby increasing productivity and generating more revenue,” he added. “Others are using big data to inform everything from marketing and brand strategy, social media outreach and analysis, fraud detection, or even to assist in evidence-based talent management decisions.”

However, the survey also indicates that while good progress has been made over the past year, much work remains to be done in translating this improved understanding of big data into a coherent and fully integrated data management approach. In this year’s survey, just 33% of respondents said their business was well prepared to manage growing data volumes (although this was significantly up on the 24% who claimed this to be the case in a similar survey carried out at the same event last year).

This year, 20% of those answering said their business was either poorly prepared or not prepared at all to deal with rapid data growth, markedly down on last year’s figure (37%) but still a cause for concern.

“There is huge potential for businesses in harnessing data for their advantage,” adds de Montcheuil. “Organisations are increasingly aware of this – and yet few are fully prepared in terms of putting the infrastructure and technology they need in place to exploit the rapid data growth we are seeing today.

Use of Open Source for Big Data Grows
The Talend Connect poll also found that the number of businesses using open source for big data has nearly doubled in a year. 30% of respondents to the survey, run by global open source software leader, Talend, said they were already using open source solutions for big data - nearly double the 17% who said this in last year’s survey.

As the technology matures, there is more clarity about open source for big data. Last year, 29% of the survey sample said they were unsure if they were utilising it or not. This year that figure has fallen to 19%. Just 14% said they had no plans to adopt.