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September 24, 2013

Gartner: Businesses Preparing to Ride the Big Data Wave

Isaac Lopez

Businesses say they’re set to surf the big data wave, Gartner said on Monday, revealing their latest survey saying that 64 percent of organizations have invested or plan to invest in big data in 2013 (an increase from the 58 percent of 2012). However, while Muscle Beach is full of hot shots talking about surfing the big one, less than eight percent of surveyed respondents have actually deployed in the big data surf.

While the deployment rates are still relatively low, the talk of deployment in the market doesn’t appear to be just idle chatter. According to the poll, which canvassed 720 of Gartner’s Research Circle members this past June, 30 percent of businesses have already invested in big data technology, with 19 percent saying they have plans to invest within the next year. Trailing behind this group is another 15 percent who say they have plans to invest within the next two years.

“The hype around big data continues to drive increased investment and attention, but there is real substance behind the hype,” said Lisa Kart, research director at Gartner. “Our survey underlines the fact that organizations across industries and geographies see ‘opportunity’ and real business value rather than the ‘smoke and mirrors’ with which hypes usually come.”

Leading the pack on the path towards adoption, according to Gartner, are media and communications, with 39 percent of organizations polled saying that they have already begun investing in big data technology. Trailing this group was banking organizations, with 34 percent claiming big data investments, and services firms at 32 percent.

Of the groups saying they plan to invest in the next two years, transportation ranked the highest with 50 percent of respondents claiming purchase plans. Healthcare and insurance were next in line with 41 percent and 40 percent respectively.

The adoption phase is generally structured and predictable, says Gartner, with businesses generally gathering knowledge first, followed by strategizing on a small, pilot implementation that “mostly consists of time.” This stage, says Gartner, is typically followed by a small proof of concept representing little actual investment. Once they’ve completed a successful pilot, deployment takes place and the investment curve goes up.

“For big data, 2013 is the year of experimentation and early deployment,” said Frank Buytendijk, research vice president at Gartner. “Adoption is still at the early stages with less than eight percent of all respondents indicating their organization has deployed big data solutions. Twenty percent are piloting and experimenting, 18 percent are developing a strategy, 19 percent are knowledge gathering, while the remainder has no plans or don’t know.”

While there is a wide range of business problems that businesses using big data are pointing the magic wand at, improving customer experience continues to be the leading use case across industries, with over half (55%) of organizations saying they’re using the tech trend for this purpose. Improving business process efficiency came in second with 49 percent saying that they’re using it to cut costs, maximize productivity, and identify risks.

While the aforementioned uses might be seen as mundane, Gartner says that a significant amount of businesses are using the related technologies for more “game changing” activities. These include such things as developing new products and business models (42%), and monetizing information directly (23%).

Gartner says that they will be examining the trends revealed in this annual survey in Orlando, Florida, at their Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in October.

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