Why Businesses Need a Search Party to Find Relevant Data

It's been well-reported that the accumulating volume of enterprise-managed data is presenting major challenges for organizations. But they're also struggling with the amount of tools they must use to collect and analyze it, according to a recent survey from Alteryx and Harvard Business Review Analytic Services. The resulting report, "Data Blending: A Powerful Method for Faster, Easier Decisions," also reveals that companies are overwhelmed by the number of sources required to mine the data. These and other factors are contributing to a less-than-enthusiastic assessment of their IT department's support in this area. As its title indicates, the report makes the case for data blending, which combines data analytics tool sets and methodologies to give business analysts self-service solutions for the improved cleansing and enriching of data. "The trouble is, to make smart and fast business decisions from data, business managers must overcome multiple challenges while using multiple analytics tools," according to the report. "Among the big challenges is the growing number of data sources analysts must gain access to. For another, many of the analytical tools on which analysts rely are incapable of processing, or struggle to process many of the data sources." More than 500 professionals,  including business, sales and marketing managers, took part in the research.