Survey reveals investment in Big Data is up but fewer organizations plan to invest as focus has shifted from Big Data itself to specific business problems it can solve
Big data investments continue to rise but are showing signs of contracting, according to a recent survey by Gartner. The survey revealed that 48 percent of companies have invested in big data in 2016, up 3 percent from 2015. However, those who plan to invest in big data within the next two years fell from 31 to 25 percent in 2016.
The online survey was conducted in June 2016 among Gartner Research Circle members. In total, 199 members participated and shared their investment plans.
Nick Heudecker, research director at Gartner said, “Investment in big data is up, but the survey is showing signs of slowing growth with fewer companies having a future intent to invest. The big issue is not so much big data itself, but rather how it is used. While organizations have understood that big data is not just about a specific technology, they need to avoid thinking about big data as a separate effort.”
While nearly three quarters of respondents said that their organisation has invested or is planning to invest in big data, many remain stuck at the pilot stage. Only 15 percent of businesses reported deploying their big data project to production, effectively unchanged from last year (14 percent).
One explanation for this is that big data projects appear to be receiving less spending priority than competing IT initiatives. Only 11 percent of respondents from organisations that have already invested in big data reported that their big data investments were as important, or more important, than other IT initiatives, while 46 percent stated that they were less important.
Heudecker added, “This could be due to the fact that many big data projects don’t have a tangible return on investment (ROI) that can be determined upfront. Another reason could be that the big data initiative is a part of a larger funded initiative. This will become more common as the term “big data” fades away, and dealing with larger datasets and multiple data types continues to be the norm.”
A further factor to consider is the lack of effective business leadership or involvement in data initiatives. Too often, pilots and experiments are built with ad-hoc technologies and infrastructure that are not created with production-level reliability in mind.
Jim Hare, research director at Gartner said, “When it comes to big data, many organisations are still finding themselves at the crafting stage. Industrialization — and the performance and stability guarantees that come with it — have yet to penetrate big data thinking.”
