Few companies willing to invest in big data: Gartner

Although 48 per cent of companies have invested in big data in 2016 -- up three per cent from 2015 -- those who plan to invest within the next two years fell from 31 to 25 per cent in 2016, a new Gartner survey has found.

"Investment in big data is up, but the survey is showing signs of slowing growth with fewer companies having a future intent to invest," Nick Heudecker, research director at Gartner, said in a statement.

"The big issue is not so much big data itself but rather how it is used. While organisations have understood that big data is not just about a specific technology, they need to avoid thinking about big data as a separate effort," Heudecker added.

Big data is a collection of different data management technologies and practices that support multiple analytics use cases.

The survey found that nearly three quarters of respondents said their organisation has invested or is planning to invest in big data and several remain stuck at the pilot stage.

Only 15 per cent of businesses reported deploying their big data project to production, effectively unchanged from last year (14 per cent).

"One explanation for this is that big data projects appear to be receiving less spending priority than competing IT initiatives," said Heudecker.

Only 11 per cent of respondents from organisations that have already invested in big data reported that their big data investments were important, while 46 per cent stated that they were less important that other IT initiatives.

"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," said Heudecker, adding, "another reason could be that the big data initiative is a part of a larger funded initiative."

According to Jim Hare, research director at Gartner, when it comes to big data, many organisations are still finding themselves at the crafting stage. "Industrialisation -- and the performance and stability guarantees that come with it -- have yet to penetrate big data thinking," Hare added.

--IANS

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