Majority of big data projects are not profitable, especially if IT is in charge
The majority of big data projects are still not profitable, underlining the difficulty of turning huge amounts of information into usable and beneficial insights.
This was the key finding in The Big Data Payoff report by Capgemini and Informatica covering 200 senior IT and data management executives at firms with over 1,000 employees in sectors including consumer goods, retail, wholesale and logistics, utilities and telecoms.
Only 27 per cent of organisations admit to having run profitable big data projects, 51 per cent of them relating to achieving improved customer satisfaction and retention.
Other business benefits cited by those generating profits from big data projects included improved decision making (38 per cent), improved collaboration and information sharing (35 per cent), and improved productivity (33 per cent).
While not all are profitable, the majority are at least not losing money. Some 45 per cent said that their efforts are breaking even, and 11 per cent said they are losing money. Twelve per cent said it was too soon to judge.
Business buy-in One major differentiator is the level of support from other executive leaders. Around 49 per cent of those that have achieved profits from a big data project said they had strong executive support, compared with just six per cent that did not have support yet had still made big data projects financially beneficial.
