Digital Realty ,the largest global provider of cloud- and carrier-neutral data centers, colocation and interconnection solutions, releases the results of its inaugural Global Data Insights Survey. It offers insights into how data is becoming one of the most critical areas of focus for all businesses – and highlights the key challenges and opportunities for data management, including the need to rethink data strategies, the effects of Data Gravity1 and the importance of harnessing the explosion of enterprise data growth globally.
More than 7,000 C-level executives, business, and technology leaders across 23 countries and nine industries were asked questions designed to facilitate industry dialogue around the business needs of data.
Data is becoming the business agenda
The survey confirms that strategy and value outcomes for enterprises rely on data-driven insights. IT leaders cited data-driven insights as being essential for improving the customer experience (50%), locating data infrastructure (37%), developing new digital products (35%), and driving business growth (28%).
Data systems, infrastructure and analytics tools identified as key areas requiring investment
A key finding of the survey is that major businesses all over the world are not investing adequately into the tools and infrastructure required to handle increasing amounts of data. It reveals that 53% of global respondents cited a lack of sufficient investment in data systems or infrastructure as a key obstacle their organization faces when seeking to draw valuable insights from data. Similarly, 50% cited a lack of sufficient investment in relevant analytics tools. In order to tackle rapid data growth, enterprises need to ensure data isn’t becoming siloed while drawing insights from it in a time-effective and compliant manner, all of which requires investment.
IT leaders need to upskill teams to extract value from data
The survey also reveals that 65% of IT leaders from some of the world’s biggest businesses say they need to improve the data capabilities of their teams to remain competitive and extract value from data. This was higher than those who cited AI investment (59%) when asked what the most important factor was for their companies in the next two years to enable more data-driven insights. Moreover, 61% of respondents from companies with revenue of $1B+ cited educating executives on the implications of siloed data as a priority.
The Global Data Insights Survey, due to be published annually, is the next step in Digital Realty’s mission to assist enterprise and service provider customers as they shift their strategies to address Data Gravity. It follows on from the findings of the Data Gravity Index DGx™ and the development of Digital Realty’s global data center platform, PlatformDIGITAL®.
Other key findings of the report include:
Data is pervasive. Data creation is multiplying at all points of business presence, contributing to a need to efficiently aggregate information. 47% of IT leaders surveyed say they are keeping data decentralized, while 52% are keeping it centralized – highlighting how strategies differ across industries on how to organize and manage data. This can have a direct impact on a company’s ability to drive value and outcomes with data, confirming the need to prioritize aggregation.
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Data requires aggregation and control. Regulations, privacy constraints, reluctant customers, and lack of investment in data systems are impeding the data-driven business agenda, with 35% of IT leaders citing data privacy and regulation as one of the key obstacles to data driven insights. The majority2 also identified the need to maintain local copies of data and applications to serve a growing number of end users and connected devices, and to ensure secure and compliant business operations.
Data is localizing. Over a third of companies surveyed have at least 21 data locations, with this group growing to 97% of companies with revenues of $1B+. This number, which is growing all the time, alongside an increasing number of users and devices, is contributing to the emergence of the critical megatrend emerging – Data Gravity. This phenomenon results in barriers that impede the efficient exchange of data and must be addressed in businesses’ data strategies to drive successful outcomes.