Tech investments strategic to meeting goals: EMC survey

By Digital News Asia December 26, 2013

Survey polled more than 10,700 business and IT decision-makers from 50 countries
68% agree that IT is now equipped to handle the most essential business priorities

Tech investments strategic to meeting goals: EMC survey MORE than three-quarters (76%) of respondents in a survey of IT decision-makers said that their business believes technology investment is a strategic way to achieve their goals (92% in India vs. 65% in England).

Furthermore, 66% of the respondents report that they have the correct level of skills and knowledge in place to complete their business priorities successfully (82% in Singapore vs. 52% in Ireland), EMC said in a statement after it released the findings of a global survey.

Over the last six months, this survey polled more than 10,700 business and IT management and executives, technical architects, data scientists and storage/infrastructure managers from a range of industries in 50 countries.

The poll asked for their perspective on the challenges and opportunities that big data and IT transformation – and related skills – can present to their companies.

Among the key findings was that companies continue to look to IT innovation in order to compete locally and on the global stage, EMC said.

The top three drivers for the transformation of IT systems and infrastructure are:

Better business processes;
Innovating products and solutions; and
Enhancing customer experience

“We weren’t surprised to see that three-quarters of businesses see IT as key to meeting their goals in the next two years – after all, IT can help businesses find efficiencies in a challenging economic climate while providing a platform for innovation for products and customers,” said Hélène Barnekow, senior vice president of World Wide Field & Partner Marketing, EMC.

“It was surprising however to see that one-third of businesses are not considering big data solutions – we expect this to change in the near-term as individuals and companies hear more about the transformative benefits that are achievable with big data analytics technology.

“The survey also reminds us that, to realise the full benefits of IT transformation, organisations must transform the technology layer while transforming the people and process layers,” she added.

Other findings:

Three quarters of respondents report that ensuring skills keep pace with the rate of IT innovation will be a challenge for their organisations over the next three years.

68% of respondents agree that IT is now equipped to handle the most essential business priorities – and that now, the biggest barrier is cultural (90% in Korea vs. 39% in Poland).

Big data is giving rise to markedly improved decision making and is having a significant impact on companies’ competitive differentiation and ability to avert risk, EMC said.

79% of businesses surveyed reported that better uses of big data will lead to better decision-making (84% in North America vs. 56% in Germany)

58% of respondents believe that big data will be a key factor in determining winners and losers in their industry (81% in Korea vs. 29% in Sweden)

36% have already achieved a competitive advantage as a result of big data analytics technology (79% in Taiwan vs. 16% in Japan)

56% of respondents also agree that big data technology will prove vital in identifying and protecting against cyber-attacks (74% in China vs. 36% in Finland)

Nearly one-third (29%) of companies surveyed have no current plans for implementing big data technology (43% in Italy vs. 9% in China)

While budget was the most important factor for overall business decision-making, the most common reason cited as inhibitors to Big Data adoption were no clear business case or proven return on investment (35%), relevancy to business (23%), and business culture being unready for big data (22%).

For a closer look at the global and country-level survey results, click here.