Data intelligence is the foundation of digital transformation—which means there’s a lot riding on the shoulders of today’s IT leaders. In addition to supporting business goals for speed and agility, they must ensure data is properly secured, governed and compliant. Yet this task becomes increasingly complex as the volume of data continues to explode in an ever-changing regulatory environment.
 
ASG explored this challenge by conducting a survey of more than 200 IT managers, directors and VPs in organizations worldwide of 500+ employees and $US10M+ in revenue.

According to ASG’s survey, almost half (45 percent) of organizations have completed one or more projects related to digitization. Even more respondents are using data to gain insight into the business and guide decisions, including improving internal processes (66 percent) and improving customer service and/or support (66 percent).
 
That said, while data-driven businesses may be digitized, they are not yet optimized. Digital transformation requires collaboration across the IT and business sides of an organization - yet 91 percent of respondents said IT is still driving digitization efforts. IT leaders need to work on getting data in the hands of business users to enable the end-to-end transformation they’re striving for.
 
Balancing Offense and Defense
 
While organizations focus on driving business value, IT and data professionals are struggling to meet the critical needs of their core functions - such as security, governance and compliance. In fact, non-compliance is a top concern across respondents.
 
This is largely due to a lack of visibility that is all too common at most organizations. Sixty-five percent of respondents do not have complete visibility into their information supply chain. Without that complete, baseline understanding of their data landscape, organizations cannot be effective in executing their offensive data strategies.
 
These barriers can be addressed by starting data intelligence efforts with an “as is” inventory. According to the survey, many organizations still need to implement this data management practice to bridge the gap between both technical and business users—especially those organizations that are not digital natives.
 
The Future of Data Intelligence
 
IT and data professionals are changing where they seek support for their digital transformation journeys. Only 37 percent of respondents look to industry analyst firms and 27 percent to industry organizations. Alternatively, more are turning to vendors (62 percent), technology consultants (55 percent) and solution providers/VARs (41 percent).

Download the full Data Intelligence Priorities 2019 survey report here.