NEW YORK: Many brand owners are struggling to make the maximum use of "big data", but firms like Unilever, General Electric and AstraZeneca are rapidly developing their capabilities in this area.
EMC, the consultancy, partnered with Toluna Research and Kaggle to poll 497 data scientists and business intelligence professionals in China, France, Germany, India, the UK and US.
Just one third of the companies represented were perceived as effectively leveraging the array of information available across digital platforms to implement better decisions.
Unilever, the FMCG giant, recently formed a tie-up with Capgemini, the consultancy, covering global business intelligence. This deal includes the creation of an "Enterprise Data Warehouse" offering real-time data on its customers, markets and operations.
"This programme is one of our top strategic initiatives," Willem Eelman, Unilever's global chief information officer, said. "It will transform the way our businesses around the world access and use information, bringing enhanced insight and consistency."
Only 38% of EMC's interviewees "strongly agreed" that their firm draws on big data to learn about consumers, and an even more modest 17% concurred that all employees could run experiments on the material accrued.
"Part of the duty of a data scientist is to promote the data-driven culture," said Monica Rogati, senior data scientist at LinkedIn. "The way to do that is by exposing the data and making it relevant to everyone in the company, and showing them what you can do with it."
While 37% of the survey panel "very frequently" worked alongside business management, figures fell to 31% for marketing teams, 29% concerning sales departments and 28% for strategic planners.
General Electric, the conglomerate, has been building company-wide tools providing staff with greater capabilities, but also understands the potential risks.
"Security has become more important … We're attacked every day, as is everybody," said Greg Simpson, GE's chief technology officer. "We do use external services - for example, we use external chat services from Cisco. But there is a certain type of data we're not comfortable putting in the cloud."
When discussing barriers to progress, a shortage of skills and training posted 32% among EMC's panel, the same score as a lack of resources, while 14% of those questioned blamed sub-optimal organisational structures.
In a bid to expand its strengths in this discipline, AstraZeneca, the pharma firm, has allied with HealthCore, part of Wellpoint, an approach yielding mutual benefits.
"By working together, we all get access to a broader, richer data environment, and we can work together on creating state-of-the-art access tools and real-world methodologies," said Mark Lelinski, AstraZeneca's VP, global marketing.
EMC, the consultancy, partnered with Toluna Research and Kaggle to poll 497 data scientists and business intelligence professionals in China, France, Germany, India, the UK and US.
Just one third of the companies represented were perceived as effectively leveraging the array of information available across digital platforms to implement better decisions.
Unilever, the FMCG giant, recently formed a tie-up with Capgemini, the consultancy, covering global business intelligence. This deal includes the creation of an "Enterprise Data Warehouse" offering real-time data on its customers, markets and operations.
"This programme is one of our top strategic initiatives," Willem Eelman, Unilever's global chief information officer, said. "It will transform the way our businesses around the world access and use information, bringing enhanced insight and consistency."
Only 38% of EMC's interviewees "strongly agreed" that their firm draws on big data to learn about consumers, and an even more modest 17% concurred that all employees could run experiments on the material accrued.
"Part of the duty of a data scientist is to promote the data-driven culture," said Monica Rogati, senior data scientist at LinkedIn. "The way to do that is by exposing the data and making it relevant to everyone in the company, and showing them what you can do with it."
While 37% of the survey panel "very frequently" worked alongside business management, figures fell to 31% for marketing teams, 29% concerning sales departments and 28% for strategic planners.
General Electric, the conglomerate, has been building company-wide tools providing staff with greater capabilities, but also understands the potential risks.
"Security has become more important … We're attacked every day, as is everybody," said Greg Simpson, GE's chief technology officer. "We do use external services - for example, we use external chat services from Cisco. But there is a certain type of data we're not comfortable putting in the cloud."
When discussing barriers to progress, a shortage of skills and training posted 32% among EMC's panel, the same score as a lack of resources, while 14% of those questioned blamed sub-optimal organisational structures.
In a bid to expand its strengths in this discipline, AstraZeneca, the pharma firm, has allied with HealthCore, part of Wellpoint, an approach yielding mutual benefits.
"By working together, we all get access to a broader, richer data environment, and we can work together on creating state-of-the-art access tools and real-world methodologies," said Mark Lelinski, AstraZeneca's VP, global marketing.
Data sourced from EMC, Forbes, McKinsey, Capgemini; additional content by Warc staff
