Survey: Businesses not managing data effectively

New York -- A new survey by KPMG Capital reveal a stark disconnect between C-suite executives who realize the value of big data, but are unsure of how to effectively implement and manage their existing resource. The study, which interviewed 144 CFOs and CIOs from multinational companies, also discovered a large majority of executives (75%) find it difficult to make decisions around data and analytics (D&A), even though 99% consider it to be important to their business.



"We live in an increasingly data-driven world where D&A has the potential to revolutionize the way we conduct and manage business operations across the entire enterprise," said Mark Toon, CEO of KPMG Capital. "From CEOs, to CFOs, CIOs and CMOs, the challenge for today's executive is understanding how to draw actionable insights from data and turn them into tangible, genuine results. This report demonstrates not only the hunger to harness new D&A capabilities, but also the greater level of support that's needed to operationalize these insights."



Additional survey findings included:



• Eighty percent of executives agree speed is a key benefit of using D&A.



• Sixty-nine percent consider D&A to be crucially or very important to their current growth plans.



• While the majority of respondents (56 percent) changed their business strategy to meet the challenges of big data, 42 percent of executives admit integrating data technology into existing systems and/or business models is their greatest challenge.



• More than half of all respondents (54%) identified their greatest barrier to implementing a successful D&A strategy was an inability to identify what data to collect.



• Eighty-five percent consider their biggest challenge with analytics to be implementing the right solution to analyze and interpret data.



KPMG Capital was launched in November 2013 by KPMG International to accelerate innovation in data and analytics services and solutions.