A new study has revealed that, for most businesses, data has become their most valuable business asset; however, they are overwhelmed by the sheer volume, velocity and variety of data.

An exponential growth of data, combined with increasing data value, is posing new and often unforeseen risks.

A Forrester Consulting study, commissioned by Dell Technologies, aimed to delve into factors that prevent businesses from translating data into actionable insights to better prepare themselves for the data era.

“Dell Technologies commissioned the study to understand why and how we can stop data from becoming one of the key barriers to transformation,” the company says.

The findings of the globally commissioned study, ‘Unveiling data challenges afflicting businesses around the world’, build on Dell Technologies’ biennial Digital Transformation Index study, which assesses the digital maturity of businesses globally.

The 2020 Index revealed that “data overload or being unable to extract insights from data” was the prime barrier to transformation.

The latest study, based on 4 036 data decision-makers from 45 locations including South Africa, and published at the Dell Technologies Forum South Africa 2021, in October, identifies several data paradoxes currently hindering businesses.

One is the ‘perception paradox’, under which 58% of South African respondents say their business is data-driven and state “data is the lifeblood of their organisation”; however, only 11% treat data as capital and prioritise its use across the business.

“To provide some clarity, Forrester Consulting created an objective measure of businesses’ data readiness, which show that 89% of South African businesses are yet to progress their data technology and processes and/or their data culture and skills,” the survey highlights, noting that only 11% are defined as data champions, which are companies actively engaged in both areas.

Under the ‘want more than they can handle’ paradox, the research shows that 68% of South African businesses say they are gathering data faster than they can analyse and use it, yet 77% say they constantly need more data than their current capabilities provide.

“This could be because 66% are guarding a significant amount of their data in data centres they own or manage, despite the known benefits of processing data at the edge – where the data is generated,” Dell comments.

Further, 41% are bolting on more data silos, rather than consolidating what they have.

“Consequently, the explosion in data is making it challenging to meet business requirements, with 64% of respondents stating that their teams are already overwhelmed by the data they currently have.”

“In a digital economy, data is one of the most valuable business assets, yet today it stands to be a significant barrier to growth. Navigating this modern-day paradox and turning vast amounts of data into actionable outcomes can seem daunting, especially when on a path to digital transformation,” says Dell Technologies South Africa MD Doug Woolley.

Talking to the ‘seeing without doing’ paradox, the report notes that, while economies have suffered during the Covid-19 pandemic, the on-demand sector has expanded, igniting a new wave of data-first, data-anywhere businesses.

However, the number of South African businesses that have moved the majority of their applications and infrastructure to an as-a-service model is still small at 11%.

The report also states that an on-demand model would help the 83% of South African businesses that are currently struggling with some or all of the following barriers to better capture, analyse and act on data, namely high storage costs; a data warehouse that is not optimised; outdated information technology infrastructure; and processes that are too manual to meet their needs.

“Although businesses are struggling to adopt robust data management strategies, many have plans to create a better tomorrow: 70% of South African businesses intend to deploy machine learning to automate how they detect anomaly data, 52% are looking to move to a data-as-a-service model and 58% are planning to look deeper into the performance stack to rearchitect how they process and use data.”