Teradata study also finds Australia second only to Germany when it comes to organisational uptake of big data and analytics
Businesses operating in Australia are embracing big data and backing the growth in the Internet of Things (IoT) to maintain global competitiveness – that is according to the findings of a study released today by Teradata (NYSE: TDC), a leading analytics solutions company.
The company’s Data and Analytics Trends 2017 study compiles findings from over 900 senior business decision makers interviewed in nine major economies around the world (USA, Japan, Australia, Germany, France, Spain, India, Russia and the UK). It examines how large organisations manage and use data today, as well as the biggest challenges and issues that will impact the big data and analytics industry over the coming years.
Key findings:
- In Australia, eight out of 10 organisations are using big data and analytics to support their business goals, second only to Germany (83%)
- Australia ranks number one in the world when it comes to Internet of Things (IoT) adoption (70%), followed by India (69%) and Germany (63%)
- As a nation, Australia fares less well on digital transformation as a component of IoT, with just over half (54%) of business leaders believing it is embraced, despite leading in terms of adoption of IoT overall
- All of Australian business leaders surveyed agree that an effective data analytics strategy is key to future organisational growth
- The skills shortage remains an issue with 48% of Australian businesses looking to increase training around data and analytics
- More than half (56%) of Australian Organisational decision makers want to see an increased budget allocation for data and analytics
Competing in one of the world’s largest economies, organisations in Australia are looking to gain competitive advantage through the adoption of data and intelligence-led business strategies. It’s a worthwhile strategy given a recent report suggested the global big data analytics market will be worth 40.69 Billion USD by 2021 Hadoop Big Data Analytics Market by Component (Solution, Service), Application (Risk & Fraud Analytics, IoT, Merchandising & SCM, Customer Analytics, Offloading Mainframe, Security Intelligence), Vertical, and Region – Global Forecast to 2021″, published by MarketsandMarkets, Jan 2017.
The Teradata study looked at four key areas of data adoption. It found Australia to be the leading nation in the world when it comes to organisational adoption of IoT (70%), followed by India (69%) and Germany (63%). Of the nine countries, Australia (80%) came second only to global leader Germany (83%) when looking at organisational use of big data and analytics.
Despite leading in IoT adoption overall, Australia fared less well on digital transformation as a component of IoT, with just over half (54%) of businesses leaders believing that their organisation is embracing this. On this point, Australia ranked just marginally ahead of the USA, which – perhaps surprisingly – ranked the lowest of all countries on digital transformation (53%).
Commenting on the research findings, Martin Willcox, Senior Director at Teradata, said: “The amount of data being generated across Australian organisations is growing exponentially and this trend is set to continue. The way in which businesses in Australia are embracing emerging technologies like IoT is only going benefit the country in the long-term. Despite this, and given the proliferation of data and devices, ever-changing consumer demands, shrinking budgets and increasing organisational pressures, shows there is still work to be done for Australian businesses when it comes to competing on the global stage.”
Emphasising this point, the study also found a high proportion of Australian business leaders (84%) believe that their current data management system is helping to effectively predict business outcomes. Though agreement was high across other countries, all Australian respondents (100%) concurred that having effective data/analytics is important to organisational success, while nearly all (9 out of ten) claim to have a system in place where data is integrated and accessed across functions.
Despite high usage and satisfaction levels amongst Australian business leaders when it comes to data management models, Teradata’s study revealed that the majority (56%) of executives would like to see an increase in data and analytics spend over the next two years. This is followed by 50% of Australian respondents who want to see more simplification of data systems, while nearly half (48%) would like an increase in training, more IT staff and a state-of the-art system in place.
Though it does appear more Australian businesses are already seeing the benefits of this boom in data. When questioned on the potential effects that integrated data analytics has on business decision-making, 70% agreed that organisational reaction times can be improved, and 79% expressed a belief that it will improve communication between organisational functions. Improving efficiency (76%) and elevating organisational image (76%) were also cited as key attributable benefits.
When asked what changes they would personally make to data and analytics in the next two years, about one-third believed improvements in relationships could occur, specifically between customers, vendors and employees. According to the study, businesses operating in Australia also see data analytics as a key means of boosting the bottom line through improved targeting of customers (42%), higher revenue generation (40%), and better efficiencies in manufacturing (37%).
Willcox concluded: “Data is the next frontier for innovation, competition and productivity, and is a currency every country will need to be able to trade in. In order to take advantage of it, businesses in Australia must be prepared to invest in both the people and the infrastructure, while at the same time placing data at the heart of business decision making.”