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Aug. 26, 2010 – Hundreds of business leaders have a “mind-boggling” lack of knowledge about their company’s business analytics prowess, according to a recent online poll.

Deloitte Consulting LLP, an advanced analytics and modeling firm, received about 1,900 responses to a webcast survey earlier this month from technology executives and business professionals. From that poll, Deloitte found that about one-third of participants either didn’t know if their organization utilized business analytics – or even if they had business analytics capabilities at all.

“Mind-boggling,” said John Lucker, a principal with Deloitte Consulting and one of the webcast presenters, in a news release about the poll.
“Organizations have ever more depth and breadth of information readily available within their grasp, and the technology and methods to extract and help synthesize the data are well proven. When you see the low levels of adoption, you have to ask the question, ‘Why aren't more companies doing it?’”

Primary reasons for the lack of knowledge of business analytics and intelligence, data management, and quantitative performance management were “departmentally siloed information” and “limited cross functional interaction.” These were cited by 52 percent of respondents to the poll as the top two obstacles.

The poll also rated priorities for business analytics by those same business leaders. With the application of business analytics, 40 percent of business executives questioned stated that “improving operational efficiency” is the leading priority. “Customer segmentation and target marketing” only garnered 17 percent of responses as to the major application of business analytics.

Lucker said, in the release, that most organizations see the value of business analytics, though they struggle with the foundations that allow implementation and use in strategic and sustainable manners.

“That emerging understanding and pent up demand is why these types of investments are going to continue to explode and the demand for business analytics capabilities will continue to increase in the coming months and years,” Lucker stated.  

The webcast, entitled “Business Analytics: Shifting from Hindsight to Insight to Foresight,” was initially held by the company Aug. 5.  

Justin Kern is associate editor at Information Management and can be reached at justin.kern@sourcemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @IMJustinKern.