Weak analytics capabilities ranging from siloed data, outdated technology and a lack of analytical talent are preventing organisations from gaining valuable insight that could lead to better business results, according to a survey by Accenture.
The survey of 600 senior managers at more than 500 blue-chip organisations in the US, the UK & Ireland found more than half the respondents said their organisations are structured in a way that prevents data and analytical talent from generating enterprise-wide insight.
For instance, almost half of the respondents (45%) said data are housed in isolated parts of their organisation, and more than half the respondents (52%) said that analytical talent is housed separately from the relevant data at their organisation. In addition 13% of employers in the UK and Ireland said that their organisations do not have any professionals dedicated to analytics.
Overall, four out of 10 respondents said their current technological resources and systems greatly hinder the effective use of enterprise-wide analytics in their organisations. And 51% said they have more opportunities to use analytics to improve the business than they have analytical resources to exploit them. Respondents from companies in nearly every industry represented in the survey also acknowledged they must improve the consistency, accuracy and completeness of their data before they can become more ambitious in terms of their analytics capabilities.
Dave Rich, managing director of the Accenture Analytics Group, said: "While there are many tools that enable organisations to examine historical data, what's needed is the ability to properly identify and analyse the data and gain the insight that enables one to make better decisions."
"Organisations that fail to tackle the issues around data, technology and analytics talent will lose out to the high-performing 10% who have leveraged predictive analytics to become more agile and adaptive and gain competitive advantage."
Despite the apparent current lack of analytics capabilities, the companies surveyed are committed to developing these capabilities. For instance, over two-thirds of respondents (71%) said that their organisation's senior management is ‘totally' or ‘highly' committed to analytics and fact-based decision-making.
