Gartner Survey Shows More Than 75 Percent of Companies Are Investing or Planning to Invest in Big Data in the Next Two Years

Skills, Governance, Funding and ROI Challenges Set to Increase

Investment in big data continues to increase in 2015, but not as rapidly as in previous years. More than three-quarters of companies are investing or planning to invest in big data in the next two years, a three percent increase over 2014, according to a recent survey of IT and business leaders by Gartner, Inc. The survey, which was conducted among 437 Gartner Research Circle Members in June 2015, included global organizations across all industries, both Gartner clients and nonclients.

“This year begins the shift of big data away from a topic unto itself, and toward standard practices,” said Nick Heudecker, research director at Gartner. “The topics that formerly defined big data, such as massive data volumes, disparate data sources and new technologies are becoming familiar as big data solutions become mainstream. For example, among companies that have invested in big data technology, 70 percent are analyzing or planning to analyze location data, and 64 percent are analyzing or planning to analyze free-form text.”

Organizations typically have multiple goals for big data initiatives, such as enhancing the customer experience, streamlining existing processes, achieving more targeted marketing and reducing costs. As in previous years, organizations are overwhelmingly targeting enhanced customer experience as the primary goal of big data projects (64 percent). Process efficiency and more-targeted marketing are now tied at 47 percent. As data breaches continue to make headlines, enhanced security capabilities saw the largest increase, from 15 percent to 23 percent.

“As big data becomes the new normal, information and analytics leaders are shifting focus from hype to finding value,” said Lisa Kart, research director at Gartner. “While the perennial challenge of understanding value remains, the practical challenges of skills, governance, funding and return on investment (ROI) come to the fore.”

To find out more about significant changes in this year’s survey findings visit Gartner Newsroom website.

Additional information from the event will be shared on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Gartner_inc and using #GartnerSYM.

Upcoming dates and locations for Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2015 include: November 8-12, Barcelona, Spain