Enterprises Scrambling to Keep Up with Evolving Business Needs for Data While Maintaining Quality and Security; Customers Share Best Practices During PentahoWorld
October 14, 2015, PENTAHOWORLD, ORLANDO, FL. — Delivering the future of analytics, Pentaho, a Hitachi Data Systems company, today announced an August 2015 commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting, "Delivering Governed Data For Analytics At Scale" at their 2nd Annual PentahoWorld customer conference. In conducting an online survey of 164 business and IT professionals with data governance responsibilities at US and UK enterprises, Forrester found that organizations are scrambling to keep up with evolving business needs for data while trying to maintain quality and security.
The study revealed that those organizations that lack a strategic approach to quality fail to keep pace with business needs. Forrester compared "Pacers," which were defined as respondents who indicated their organizations were effective and very effective at keeping pace with business data needs (59%), with the rest of respondents, which we categorized as "Chasers" (41%). The study found that relative to Pacers, Chasers struggle to find and deliver data in a timely manner and face gaps in data completeness.
"We believe that the findings from this study underscore the importance of data governance, interoperability and flexibility. These findings are the impetus for our annual customer conference and central to the development of our big data orchestration platform and our recent 6.0 release as customers put big data to work" said Quentin Gallivan, Chief Executive Officer at Pentaho, a Hitachi Data Systems company. "While we’ve made significant strides as an industry with big data, we know data and tools must evolve. Our customers are at the front lines of big data in the enterprise, this is a time to share best practices and devise a data quality strategy, so they can help grow their business and drive a competitive advantage with data."
Vast And Varied Data Sources Power Today’s Enterprise-Scale Analytics Capabilities
According to the study, data environments are growing exponentially as businesses evolve in an increasingly digital world. Structured and unstructured data accumulate from transactional, operational, content-centric systems and connected devices. Against this backdrop, businesses seek new and innovative ways to harness big data for decision-making, risk management, and business growth. Here are some key findings from the commissioned study:
- On average, 52% of firms blend together 50 or more distinct data sources to enable analytics capabilities. About a third (34%) blend 100 or more data sources, and 12% blend 1,000 or more
- More than 60% of survey respondents rated data quality, as well as security and privacy, as very important aspects of data governance. Data quality, security, and privacy are paramount in governance. Two themes were consistent across companies: data quality and security/privacy. Overall, more than 60% of organizations rated these as "very important" aspects of data governance strategies.
- Different types of data require different levels of governance. Data professionals recognize that all data is not created equal.
- On-premises transactional data receives the most governance, with 53% highly governed. Big data, external transactions, and cloud sources are also highly governed by 45% to 46% of organizations. However, customer data that contributes to an organization’s strategic and growth objectives is still in a relatively chaotic state, with only 35% high governance.
- In the past 12 months, organizations with high governance maturity have seen significant improvements in their ability to: 1) enhance data quality and consistency; 2) make better-informed business decisions; 3) increase competitive advantage; and 4) improve customer experience, effectively supporting topline business objectives.
- Data governance professionals today prioritize operations and risk over reward. The vast majority of data governance professionals have enabled one or more operations or risk capabilities — 91% and 82%, respectively. In contrast, 50% use analytics for business growth purposes such as customer sentiment analysis, partner incentive programs, or cross-sell/upsell recommendations
"Pentaho had an early lead in understanding how emerging trends like IoT and the convergence of Cloud and Big Data would impact enterprise IT strategies. The Pentaho big data orchestration platform helps to combat the challenges issued in this study: need for strong data governance, diverse data blending, and delivery of analytics embedded at the point of impact, so more organizations can evolve into the Pacer category," added Gallivan.
As outlined in this study, data integration and governance is more than the ability to extract, transform, and load data. Data professionals need to take on more than the system and syntactical view of data if they are going to not only meet, but also keep pace with, today’s organizational demands for data. Developing a framework that describes the insights, decisions, consumption, and business processes that data supports ensures that data is not just available but also accurate and trusted. This turns data into a strategic tool to improve customer experience and address rising customer expectations. To succeed, data professionals need to expand the way they work with data, assess their systems, and include business owners in the process.
- For access to the full study, as well as Forrester’s Key Recommendations to Delivering Governed Data For Analytics At Scale, please visit: http://www.pentaho.com/resources/delivering-governed-data-analytics-scale-forrester-research
- Watch the PentahoWorld keynote live at http://www.siliconangle.tv/pentaho-world-2015/
- Follow PentahoWorld on Twitter using #PWorld15
Appendix A: Methodology
In this study, Forrester conducted an online survey of 164 business and IT leaders in the US and UK with decision-making authority or influence over data governance at their organization. The survey targeted companies with 1,000+ employees across all industries, but respondents from the healthcare, government, financial services, telecom, and energy/utilities verticals took priority. The survey evaluated data analytics objectives, governance challenges, and governance best practices. Survey participants included decision-makers in IT and line of business roles (Finance, Operations, etc.), with IT comprising half the sample and line of business comprising the other half. Questions provided to the participants asked [provide high-level detail of questions]. Respondents were offered a small incentive as a thank you for time spent on the survey. The study began and was completed in June 2015.
Appendix B: Supplemental Material
Related Forrester Research
"Data Quality Market Overview: Trust Your Data To Succeed With Customers," Forrester Research, Inc., July 7, 2015.
"Zombie Data May Be Taking Over Your Business," Forrester Research, Inc., July 13, 2015.
About Pentaho, a Hitachi Group company
Pentaho, a Hitachi Group company, is a leading data integration and business analytics company with an enterprise-class, open source-based platform for diverse big data deployments. Pentaho’s unified data integration and analytics platform is comprehensive, completely embeddable and delivers governed data to power any analytics in any environment. Pentaho’s mission is to help organizations across multiple industries harness the value from all their data, including big data and IoT, enabling them to find new revenue streams, operate more efficiently, deliver outstanding service and minimize risk. Pentaho has over 15,000 product deployments and 1,500 commercial customers today including ABN-AMRO Clearing, BT, EMC, NASDAQ and Sears Holdings Corporation. For more information visit www.pentaho.com.
