The 2018 State of Data Management

Profisee, a global leading modern data management technology company, released the results of its first annual data management report, “The 2018 State of Data Management.” The survey, conducted between January and April of 2018, aims to provide insights into data management, strategy, challenges, trends, benchmarks and ‘how others are doing it’.  It is Profisee’s hope that data management professionals across the global data management community can use this information to help drive new initiatives, improve existing efforts and leverage the data for comparison against how others across the globe are engaged with data management.

The report found two interrelated themes that highlight the biggest opportunity to better implement common best practices in data management. These themes include a greater need for business engagement vs IT led initiatives, as well as analyzing the benefits of a data management program between cost savings and how a data management program can help drive revenue.

Worldwide, the volume of collected data is doubling every 30 months, which means that 90% of the data that existed in the beginning of 2018 was created in the last two years,” states Jeff Wilson, Profisee Chief Marketing Officer. “Accessing, understanding and collaborating on information the business needs has never been more important as it is today.”

2018 State of Data Management Key Findings

While the challenges with data management are growing, industry analysts in the space state that the overall data management market is less than 10% penetrated.  As strategic initiatives of organizations become increasingly dependent on accurate and timely information, and as practices and technologies for data management mature, the shift from more tactical to strategic data management will increase significantly.

• More than ½ of the survey respondents indicated that gaining sufficient engagement of business stakeholders to be the biggest challenge in implementing a data management strategy.
• With more than 67% of survey respondents struggling to determine the business value of data management strategy, those struggling must start linking data management to business value, measurable in dollars and cents.
• The survey clearly shows the importance of data governance, as the vast majority (63%) of respondents said that human error is the most prevalent cause of poor data quality within their organization.

Nearly half of respondents indicate they have no ongoing processes for data management, choosing to do nothing or rely on one-time data cleanups.  This highlights the substantial opportunity for companies to better manage their data as a financial asset,” shares Len Finkle, Profisee CEO.

An overwhelming 87% of survey respondents said that improved analytics and data quality is the primary benefit of data management strategy. This trend lines up with another trend that was published from the 2018 CIO Agenda report by Gartner, where executive leadership is making investments in and aligning resources towards BI/Analytics initiatives. This push for analytics and data quality stems from better decision making capabilities which ties back to companies using data to drive market share and growth.

For more information, including more details on data management strategy, data governance & stewardship, and data management technology, download the full report.

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