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UK above average on strategic use of analytics

The UK has slightly more chief data officers than the global average, which helps drive strategic initiatives – but security is still seen as a major hurdle

Cliff Saran
By
Published: 09 Aug 2018 11:22

Use of data is on the rise, but more than one-fifth of users surveyed in a global study by MicroStrategy admitted they could be doing more with analytics.

In an era of accelerating digital disruption, 57% of enterprises are using data and analytics to drive strategy and change, according to MicroStrategy’s Global state of enterprise analytics survey.

The study, based on a survey of 500 analytics and business intelligence professionals across Brazil, Germany, Japan, the UK and the US, found that data privacy and security concerns are key challenges for organisations around the globe. Almost half of the respondents said these concerns are holding their organisation back from using data more effectively.

For most countries, security was the highest-rated criterion when respondents were asked what is most important when selecting an analytics product for their organisation. The global average was 27%, while 28% of the UK data and analytics professionals who took part in the online survey put security as the most important criterion.

But in the US, 26% of respondents named enterprise scalability as their the highest selection criterion, while only 14% chose security as their top concern.

The study found that the role of chief data officer (CDO) is also on the rise around the world. More than half of the organisations in the survey (57%) said they now have a CDO. This role could be pivotal in helping to democratise data and analytics across all parts of the organisation.

In the UK, 65% of respondents said they use analytics to drive strategy, compared with the global average of 57%. Significantly, the UK appears to have more CDOs (60%) than the global average (57%), which may account for the greater bias towards the strategic use of analytics

The UK came out top in the proportion of users running big data analytics (64%), compared with the global average of 59%.

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Among the key roles of a chief data officer is to promote the use of analytics across the business. But globally, MicroStrategy noted that this year’s survey showed that 48% of organisations’ front-line employees are not given access to data and analytics tools.

Japan reported the highest use of advanced and predictive analytics at 60%, while 54% of UK users said they used such techniques, and in the US, 49% said the same.

Read more on Big data analytics