Harnessing data effectively is a key attribute of the world’s leading companies, giving them a competitive advantage through the ability to quickly gain insights and advance innovation. But new research commissioned by Lenovo has found that in fact, only a minority (15%) of organisations currently meet the criteria to be considered a ‘Data Leader’.

The ‘Data for Humanity’ report polled senior executives in organisations with revenues of $500 million or more across five countries to explore how the world’s largest businesses are harnessing data, and where they see opportunities to use it to meet their goals and draw an advantage in a competitive landscape.

The Data Leaders are an elite group identified through the research that have enacted successful strategies across three key pillars of Data Management, Data Analytics and Data Security, enabling them to use data more effectively across business functions. These data-centered organisations have consequently seen a myriad of benefits, and in the past 12 months have successfully increased revenue (78%) and improved customer satisfaction (70%). The Data Leaders are also far less likely to have experienced the effects of poor employee productivity (13%) and reduced innovation (10%).

The Three Data Pillars

Despite just a minority falling into the Data Leaders category, the key pillars of Data Management, Data Analytics and Data Security feature prominently in all organisations’ future plans. Business leaders state that over the next five years, they are most likely to invest in:

• Cybersecurity tools (59%)
• Artificial intelligence (AI) tools (58%)
• Data analytics tools (57%)
• Data storage (55%)

Other aspects seen as vital to extracting data capabilities include increasing automation of data management and/or analysis (89%) and improving the use of different types of data, such as external and unstructured data (88%).

Organisations are currently seeing success across some areas. Most leaders feel that their data solution is scalable (58%), highly automated (57%), and simple for employees to use (55%). Many also feel that their current tools and technologies improve visibility, helping to provide a single view of all the data across the business (54%), and have the majority of their data stored in the cloud (52%).

Yet only half (52%) are happy with their current data platform, and almost a quarter (23%) feel that they are lagging behind competitors in this space. Security and skills are both cited as key areas holding businesses back, in addition to struggles with internal communication and data integration. Over half (56%) also struggle to access their data from anywhere, an increasingly important factor in the hybrid working era.

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