KPMG: Challenges in Current Data and Analytics Strategies

By Rob Starr, Content Manager, Big4.com

A large number of companies have adopted a data analytics strategy to better leverage in-house information, but management teams don’t seem to have the right access to marketplace data needed to make strategic decisions, says a new survey from KPMG LLP, the U.S. audit, tax and advisory firm.

The KPMG survey taken during Oracle OpenWorld, the flagship conference of Oracle Corporation, found  senior management remains increasingly challenged to analyze current data and to act meaningfully on the results, according to 45 percent of more than 370 executives surveyed during the leading IT conference. In addition, more than one-quarter of respondents said their major challenge has been dealing with data raining in from other sources.

More than 60 percent of respondents to the KPMG survey taken during Oracle OpenWorld, the flagship conference of Oracle Corporation, said their organization has a defined data and analytics strategy. However, only 39 percent of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that senior management had access to the rising volume of data gathered from the marketplace necessary to predict the needs of their customers. This “unstructured” data is typically generated by customers, vendors and analysts over websites, by mobile device users, and via social networking.

Jeanne E. Johnson, who leads KPMG’s Data & Analytics (D&A) innovation initiative commented:

“Data generated on the Internet by customers and vendors can help offer new predictive opportunities to anticipate market changes,” she said. “But it remains a huge challenge to harness this kind of data as it is not only generated from disparate reporting systems, but is generated by a wide variety of external stakeholders.”