More than 80 per cent of organisations are not fully satisfied with their data management and warehousing initiatives, according to new research.

A Vanson Bourne survey of 500 IT decision-makers in the UK and US for SnapLogic found that disconnected apps and data, outdated legacy technology and manual data movement were holding businesses back from achieving their objectives.

The average organisation has 115 distinct applications and data sources across their enterprise, but almost half of them (49 per cent) are siloed from one another.

Respondents expressed clear concern, with 89 per cent of IT decision-makers from organisations where these apps and systems aren’t integrated worried that these data silos are holding them back. These respondents confirmed they are losing, on average, more than $1 million annually due to poor data management.

However, the survey suggested organisations are committed to building a data-driven enterprise and are funding their data management initiatives accordingly, with 76 per cent of survey respondents indicating that their companies have increased their data budgets over the past year.

IT decision makers are investing in data storage solutions such as data warehouses and data lakes to help them make the most of their valuable data assets. By doing so, respondents said they hope to achieve faster and more informed decision making (70 per cent), an improvement in business operations (64 per cent), accelerated innovation and new business development (63 per cent), an enhanced customer experience (61 per cent) and more efficient and productive employees (57 per cent).

Nearly nine in ten (88 per cent) experienced challenges trying to load data into data warehouses, with the biggest inhibitors being legacy technology (49 per cent), complex data types and formats (44 per cent), data silos (40 per cent), and data access issues tied to regulatory requirements (40 per cent).

A total of 42 per cent of respondents said their data management and warehousing processes are currently being carried out manually, but could be automated. As a result, almost all respondents (93 per cent) believe improvements are needed in how they collect, manage, and analyse data.

Craig Stewart, chief technology officer at SnapLogic, said: “We are not only in a period of exponential data growth, but also one in which data lies at the heart of the successful adoption of technologies such as AI, automation, and advanced analytics.

“This means that having an effective data management and warehousing strategy is business-critical.”

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