Following a recent survey among 300 organisations in Australia, IDC reports that about a third view Big Data analytics as essential or critical to their business, while 80% have either deployed or have plans to launch it in the next 12 months.
This illustrates, according to IDC, that Australian organisations are at different levels of maturity when it comes to Big Data projects, from ad-hoc and experimental discovery, to advanced analytical capability to drive decision-making.
“That was quite a surprising result,” says Shayum Rahim, IDC’s head of Software Research and Big Data lead for Australia and New Zealand. “Technology vendors and service providers will really need to think about where in this maturity model they will engage customers. Do they go with the low hanging fruit and target customers with budgeted projects, or do they expand their pipeline and work with those customers who have just begun their business analytics journey?”
The research also suggests that the C-Suite is very much involved in the decision to invest in Big Data projects.
“Australian organisations are being very strategic in the use of data analytics to deliver specific line of business outcomes,” Rahim adds. “We spoke to senior IT executives who acknowledged a shift in focus from IT priorities to LOB requirements when it came to Big Data initiatives. There will be a growing need for CIOs to be closer linked to LOBs and their specific goals if they are to remain relevant in rapidly changing organisational landscapes.”