Study: Firms Lack Business Analytics Benefits

The data analysis enabled by business analytics and business intelligence software provides a critical competitive edge to firms. Yet a study indicates that enterprises don’t fully understand the importance of these key apps.

Almost a third of technology executives and business professionals say they don’t know whether their organization uses business analytics or if their organizations have business analytics capabilities at all, according to new data from accounting and consulting giant Deloitte.

As a result, plenty of enterprises would seem to be missing out on the benefits of business intelligence and other analytical tools that enable them to leverage the massive amounts of data at their disposal to make better business decisions, optimize processes and pursue new opportunities.

John Lucker, a principal with Deloitte Consulting, leader of its Advanced Analytics and Modeling practice and one of the webcast presenters, called the finding “mind-boggling.”

“Organizations have ever more depth and breadth of information readily available within their grasp, and the technology and methods to extract and help synthesize the data are well proven,” Lucker said. “When you see the low levels of adoption, you have to ask the question, ‘Why aren’t more companies doing it?'”

Additionally, 17 percent of respondents ranked “customer segmentation and target marketing” as the second leading priority of implementing business analytics.

Read the rest at CIO Update.