The negative impact is more than just financial. The study, conducted by independent research firm
Vanson Bourne, also found that nearly half of respondents (47%) believe disconnected data is negatively impacting their organization's ability to innovate, develop new products and services and get them to market quickly. In addition, their ability to engage, support, and meet the needs of customers (46%) is also negatively impacted.
Aging technology is only compounding this problem. The study found that organizations are struggling to unite their disparate systems. For more than four in ten (41%), critical company data is trapped in legacy systems that cannot be accessed or linked to cloud services. Seventy-six (76%) percent of respondents have at least some data trapped in this way.
David Downing, Chief Marketing Officer at SnapLogic said: "The data economy is in full swing with every department across the enterprise relying on data to get their jobs done effectively, whether Marketing, HR, IT, or Sales. And yet we continue to see the same issues around legacy technology, disconnected systems, and trapped data. This is hampering collaboration, decision-making and timely business outcomes, and with the cost reaching into the billions, we need to act."
Indeed, it's not just siloed technology which is resulting in disconnected data. Businesses are also failing to walk the walk in terms of collaboration. For more than four in ten (44%), a lack of collaboration between business departments has been a challenge, while three in ten (30%) have found that different departments are hindering collaboration by being overly protective of their own systems and data.
Unsurprisingly, given this lack of collaboration, over a fifth (21%) claim to not know what data other departments hold, and one in six (17%) don't know how many data sources even exist. Uniting company data is a difficult task for organizations, especially when data silos seem to be a common occurrence.
As a result of disconnected data, workers are on average also spending more time searching for, acquiring, entering, or moving data (8 hours per week) than they do making decisions on that data (7 hours per week).
IT is already trying to solve this problem with manual quick fixes being used to link systems, but nearly half (48%) of respondents' want to get rid of these compromised shortcuts within their organization. What's more, nearly a third (31%) have experienced errors, data loss, or privacy violations in their organization as a result of manual moves or ad hoc coding to integrate data.
Downing concluded: "Organizations need to be rethinking how they approach the access to and use of data within, and across, teams. If a business cannot be innovative, bring products to market in a timely manner, or deliver the level of service their customers expect then they simply aren't going to be around for much longer."
