Almost half of the investments on Big Data isgoing to business functions like sales, marketing and new product development,while spending on IT, finance and Human Relations is much less, according to aTCS study.
As per Tata Consultancy Services's (TCS) Emerging Big Returnsfrom Big Data global trend report, the toughest challenge for businesses usingBig Data initiatives is getting different business units to share informationacross organisational silos.
Big Data is used to describe voluminous amounts of unstructuredand semi-structured information that a company creates and, which would take alot of time and cost to load into a database for analysis.
"The toughest challenges for businesses implementingBig Data initiatives is getting different business units to share informationacross organisational silos and determining what data to use for differentbusiness decisions," TCS said in a release.
The report also indicates technological challenge of beingable to handle the large volume, velocity and variety of Big Data.
"Regardless of whether they are leaders or laggards, nearlyhalf (44 per cent) of Big Data investments are going to business functions onthe revenue side: sales, marketing and R&D/new product development. Muchless (24 per cent) is going to back-office functions: IT, finance and HR,"it said.
TCS surveyed 1,217 companies in nine countries in four regionsof the world (the US, Europe, Asia-Pacific and LatinAmerica) in late December2012 and January 2013.
"Of these companies, a little more than half (643) saidthey had undertaken Big Data initiatives in 2012," it said.
The report further revealed that leaders in Big Data are doinganalysis outside of business units with 79 per cent of them are using the ITfunction or a separate Big Data team and only 21 per cent doing the analysis inbusiness units.
The laggards on the other hand are doing only 68 per cent oftheir analysis outside of the business units, it added.
"The most marked difference is that leaders spent USD24 million in 2012 and expect to spend USD 26 million by 2015, whereas thelaggards spent USD 7 million in 2012 and expect to spend USD 13 million by2015," it said.
Country-wise US companies are leading adoptionof Big Data initiatives (68 per cent), followed by Latin America (51 per cent),Europe (45 per cent) and Asia Pacific (39 percent).