Global cloud- and carrier-neutral data centre provider, Digital Realty, has released the results of its inaugural Global Data Insights Survey. The report 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 Gravity, 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.
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 per cent), locating data infrastructure (37 per cent), developing new digital products (35 per cent), and driving business growth (28 per cent).
Another key finding of the survey is that major businesses all over the world are not investing adequately in the tools and infrastructure required to handle increasing amounts of data. It reveals that 53 per cent of global respondents cited a lack of sufficient investment in data systems or infrastructure as a key obstacle their organisation faces when seeking to draw valuable insights from data. Similarly, 50 per cent cited a lack of sufficient investment in relevant analytics tools.
In order to tackle rapid data growth, enterprises need to ensure data is not becoming siloed while drawing insights from it in a time-effective and compliant manner, all of which requires investment.
The survey also reveals that 65 per cent 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 per cent) when asked what the most important factor was for their companies in the next two years to enable more data-driven insights. Moreover, 61 per cent of respondents from companies with revenue of more than $1 billion cited educating executives on the implications of siloed data as a priority.
Digital Realty says that the Global Data Insights Survey, due to be published annually, is the next step in their mission to assist enterprise and service provider customers as they shift their strategies to address Data Gravity. It follows the findings of the Data Gravity Index and the development of Digital Realty’s global data centre platform, PlatformDIGITAL.
“Recently, we have witnessed the emergence of a new megatrend occurring on our platform – the explosion of enterprise data growth globally. All industries are becoming information industries via the need to create, consume, analyse, store and exchange ever-growing amounts of data. This drove us to seek to understand the effects of data in a much deeper way,” explains Dave McCrory, VP of Growth and Global Head of Insights and Analytics at Digital Realty.
“We are constantly looking to support our enterprise and service provider customers to better extract insights from their data as they shift their strategies to address Data Gravity. This in-depth research further contributes to our thought leadership in this area, building on the existing research we have already shared in our Data Gravity Index.”
