How much organizations are investing in analytics and why

Despite 94% of organizations believing data and analytics is important to their digital transformation and business growth, most are not enabling a data-driven culture, according to MicroStrategy.

Data-deprived employees

Compared to executives and management employees, front-line employees are data-deprived and have the least access to data and analytics. The contrast between the data-privileged and the data-deprived is most pronounced in the financial services industry, with just 11% of front-line employees getting access to analytics reports.

For 60% of employees, it takes hours or days to get the information they need, while only 3% can find information in seconds.

When those who aren’t adept at analytics need to make a data-driven decision, 79% have to ask IT or a business analyst for help. Only 7% use a self-service tool.

Analytics-related investments

Investments in analytics initiatives, namely talent and technology, are increasing. Seventy-five percent of large enterprises and 59% of smaller companies (<1,000 employees) say they will invest more in talent. Seventy-nine percent of large enterprises and 60% of smaller companies say they will invest more in technology.

“Shockingly, when it comes to making data-driven decisions, the majority of the workforce is still winging it,” said Marge Breya, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, MicroStrategy Incorporated.

“With self-service analytics adoption hovering at 30%, organizations need to surface insights in a timely manner that benefits the entire workforce. Sixty-five percent of organizations plan to increase their analytics investments in the next year.

“We recommend those investments go toward building an insights-first culture that rewards data-driven decision-making and continuous transformation—the essential foundation of an Intelligent Enterprise.”

Survey respondents who have embraced the use of data and analytics report benefits such as improved efficiency and productivity, faster and more effective decision making and better financial performance. Retail and healthcare industries are leading the charge in this area, using analytics to identify and create new product and revenue streams.

Recommendations for success

Think open and embrace a multi-tool environment. It’s no longer realistic to think that a single tool is going to serve all of an organization’s needs or cater to varying users’ capability levels. Therefore, organizations should consider an open platform approach to enterprise analytics that ensures a secure, governed, scalable, high-performance environment.

This openness allows other tools to tap into trusted enterprise data, blend information from multiple systems, and quickly build content—without users having to give up their favorite data sciences, AI, and self-service BI tools.

Seek to enable every person, process, application, and device. Countless decisions happen every day across organizations, so it comes to reason that insights must be accessible in seconds.

Tools, applications, and services should match each user’s abilities. To that end, organizations should seek to enable everyone with self-evident insights that appear in the mobile apps, screens, products, and business applications people use every day.

Start with trusted data and enrich it to gain insights. To truly thrive in the next generation of analytics, users need governed, trusted enterprise data assets and systems that improve with use.

By incorporating a semantic layer that learns over time, organizations can open the way to a new class of AI-driven applications and experiences by layering their data with system usage, location, and telemetry data. This effectively turns each user into a contributor of insights, fueling a feedback loop that helps make the organization collectively smarter over time.

Insight from around the world

The global report also revealed impactful insights from BI and analytics decision makers about the current state of their organizations’ analytics initiatives and their future plans in the following countries:

• Brazil: Along with Germany, Brazil had the highest rate (58%) of front-line employees having access to an organization’s data and analytics. The US was the lowest at just 44%. Almost a third (32%) of respondents in Brazil believe their analytics programs are ahead of their peers, compared to 26% global average.
• Germany: Cloud computing will have the most significant impact on German analytics initiatives over the next five years, whereas in Japan and Brazil, IoT is considered to have the most influence.
• Japan: Almost a quarter (23%) of respondents in Japan said their front-line employees were empowered with quick views of analytics to make better decisions.
• UK: Nearly a quarter (24%) of UK respondents believed they were behind when it came to their analytics program, in relation to their peers.
• US: Companies in the US seem the most resistant to cloud BI and analytics, compared to other countries. 50% of US respondents said their organization is not considering a move to the cloud. That figure was 14% in the UK and 15% in Japan. Respondents believe cloud computing, IoT and big data will have the most significant impact in US analytics initiatives over the next five years.

To obtain a global and cross-industry view of the state and future of data and enterprise analytics use, MicroStrategy surveyed 500 business intelligence and analytics professionals across Brazil, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States in Q2 2019.

The respondents represent 10 industry segments (financial services, government, healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing, retail, software tech, professional services, telecommunications and other), with the majority employed at an organization with more than $100 million in annual revenue.