How Big Data Is Missing the Mark

January 5, 2016

At this point in the Big Data sensation, many businesses are swimming in data without the means to leverage it effectively. TechWeek Europe cites a recent survey from storage provider Pure Storage in its write-up, “Big Data ‘Fails Businesses’ Due to Access, Skills Shortage.” Interestingly, most of the problems seem to have more to do with human procedures and short-sightedness than any technical shortcomings. Writer Tom Jowitt lists the three top obstacles as a lack of skilled workers, limited access to information, and bureaucracy. He tells us:

“So what exactly is going wrong with Big Data to be causing such problems? Well over half (56 percent) of respondents said bureaucratic red tape was the most serious obstacle for business productivity. ‘Bureaucratic red tape around access to information is preventing companies from using their data to find those unique pieces of insight that lead to great ideas,’ said [Pure Storage’s James] Petter. ‘Data ownership is no longer just the remit of the CIO, the democratisation of insight across businesses enables them to disrupt the competition.’ But regulations are also causing worry, with one in ten of the companies citing data protection concerns as holding up their dissemination of information and data throughout their business. The upcoming EU General Data Protection Regulation will soon affect every single company that stores data.”

The survey reports that missed opportunities have cost businesses billions of pounds per year, and almost three-quarters of respondents say their organizations collect data that is just collecting dust. Both cost and time are reasons that information remains unprocessed. On the other hand, Jowitt points to another survey by CA Technologies; most of its respondents expect the situation to improve, and for their data collections to bring profits down the road. Let us hope they are correct.

Cynthia Murrell, January 5, 2016

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Data, Marketing, News, Search, Technology

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.