Why Businesses Need a Search Party to Find Relevant Data
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Why Businesses Need a Search Party to Find Relevant Data
The growing reams of data from a variety of sources is creating major challenges when using analytics tools designed to uncover value in that data. -
Critical Component
88% of survey respondents said data analytics is important to their organization's decisions and processes, with 31% describing analytics as "extremely important." -
Primary Role
More than three out of five said business managers are at least somewhat dependent on their IT managers, data scientists, data managers and other analytics pros. -
Lukewarm Impression
40% said they're only "moderately" satisfied with these IT pros' efforts. Less than 2% say they're "extremely" satisfied. -
Distributed Data
64% use at least five data sources for operational decision-making, and 31% use 10 or more. -
Growth Source
77% expect the number of data sources to increase over the next two years, and 29% expect the number of sources to increase "substantially." -
Top Data Tools: Digital Relic
92% said their organization still uses spreadsheets (such as Excel) for data analysis. -
Top Data Tools: DIY
52% use analytics tools developed in-house. -
Top Data Tools: Analytics Assist
49% use tools from third parties. -
Top Data Tools: Customer Profile
43% use consumer databases. -
Top Data Tools: Search Party
37% use low-level SQL queries -
Top Data Tools: Off-Premise
30% use cloud-based analytics tools.
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.