Oracle shows companies struggle to get value from data

Oracle's report 'The Data Dilemma: From Obstacle to Opportunity' also highlights concerns around data security, data accuracy and fragmented systems. The research, which surveyed 500 IT managers and CIOs in UK organisations with more than 250 employees, reveals that 88% of businesses do see data as a strategic asset to their business, yet more than half (52%) say their biggest frustration is the complexity around managing multiple data sources. One third (33%) also believe they have lost a customer or new business deal as a result of missing data, while 30% also admit to losing business due to the mishandling of data. David Rajan, director of technology at Oracle UK, points out that behind the headline states, it appears that businesses are most impacted by the integration of data (46%), which leads to familiar issues in managing and getting value from their data. He points to the finding that only one in 20 organisations have data that is completely integrated across all their enterprise systems. In fact, almost one in five (18%) say that each system holds its own data and is not integrated at all. Rajan also note that little more than a quarter of respondents (27%) have an ILM strategy in place – suggesting that although organisations place a lot of value on their data, the systems holding that data could be significantly more efficient. "Traditionally, businesses have looked at how to manage data from a purely technical perspective, which is no longer a viable approach," comments Rajan. "Although technology is clearly key in delivering value from data, businesses can no longer just keep adding more hardware, applications and databases to an already complex and fragmented infrastructure," he advises. "Imagine placing data on the balance sheet alongside goodwill, and consider how that would give your organisation the incentive it needs to qualify the value of its data and invest time and money in harvesting the intelligence from it," suggests Rajan. His view: compnaies need to take a "data perspective" and redefine the role IT plays in delivering value. "The best way for businesses to get competitive advantage is to have better information and that won't happen while companies have fragmented data spread across hundreds or even thousands of databases," warns Rajan.