Is the State of Analytics REALLY That Bad?

Is the State of Analytics REALLY That Bad?
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I imagine most All Analytics readers are confident about their own ability to leverage data, but I wonder how far that extends beyond their own desks. A recent report by industry association CompTIA got me thinking about what's holding companies back. The survey focused more on how confident people are in their company's ability to use data. An overwhelming number of the 402 professionals surveyed were bearish.
Excuses, excuses Seventy-five percent of CompTIA's survey respondents said their businesses would be stronger if they could use all of their data. Conceptually, that makes sense. Practically speaking, it may not. After all, not all data is valuable. A lot of it is just noise so "all" is a slippery slope. Do the survey respondents think they need access to all their company's data or do they actually need it?.
Tim Herbert, SVP of Research & Market Intelligence at CompTIA said in an interview that companies can do a much better job with what they have.
"Doing more with what you have in some cases is not as interesting as adopting the newest big data tools. The other part is taking advantage of new opportunities. Even small businesses can tap into certain data streams without a lot of heavy investment," he said.
In short, "more data" is probably a more realistic desire than "all data."
Also, 73 percent of CompTIA's survey respondents said they need better real-time analytics capability, which is understandable given the fast pace of business. Not everything requires real-time speed yet, although more things are moving in that direction. Meanwhile, information silos and architectural challenges are making real-time analysis difficult.