"Big data" gains prominence

NEW YORK: Brand owners are using digital tools and "big data" for a wide range of reasons, although many are failing to maximise the benefits, a study by McKinsey has argued.

The consultancy surveyed 927 executives and found that 40% agreed that providing in-depth insights and information to support planning and decision making is now increasingly vital, up from 30% last year.

Creating new products and services scored 29% on this measure, while leveraging new technologies to enter new markets scored 20%.

Elsewhere, 60% of respondents revealed their marketing and sales teams were making greater use of data and analytics, the highest ratings here. This fell to a low of 42% for R&D teams.

In spite of the potential "big data" offers to transform corporate strategies, over 75% of the sample said the most profound benefit from possessing better systems here are still linked to financial reporting and performance metrics.

More positively, some 72% of contributors had employed "big data" and analytics to improve business processes or customer engagement "at scale" or in a more "selected way".

This total stood at 54% when discussing using social media technologies to improve collaboration internally, either with business partners or with customers.

Scores fell to 45% for leveraging existing online social platforms to increase customer engagement, branding or marketing. A further 36% of organisations were creating products or business models premised on cloud computing services.

Turning to mobile, 55% of firms were deploying wireless tools to support in-house teams and processes, 45% used such offerings to engage business partners.

A 39% share of the panel were using apps, dedicated mobile sites and similar services, and 30% had utilised mobile-specific capabilities such as location-based services.

Obstacles linked to getting the most out of this broad palate of digital activities included companies prioritising experience over data on 19%, a lack of skilled staff on 17%, low-quality data on 16% and a lack of relevant material on 12%.

"In our experience, some of the toughest challenges are creating a "single source" of truth, consolidating data architectures, and developing analytic tools and skills," McKinsey's study added.

Data sourced from McKinsey; additional content by Warc staff, 17 February 2012

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