IDG Connect and Avention Reveal the State of Big Data Among Modern Enterprises; Results Show Insight is Critical for Business Impact

CONCORD, Mass., Sept. 16, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Avention, Inc., a leader in transformative sales and marketing enablement and business information solutions, today announced the results of IDG-Connect's "Big Data for Marketing & Sales: Data Accuracy to Business Impact," an in-depth research report that reveals the major challenges behind improving data accuracy within the enterprise and developing a data-focused strategy that benefits the bottom line.

According to the report, which surveyed 300 respondents from U.S. enterprise organizations, raising the bar beyond data accuracy to achieve business benefit is an obvious challenge. Given the broad range of issues organizations face due to the explosion of data, it can be difficult to clearly identify major impact areas. When asked which challenge was the most important to address, respondents cited Poor Data Quality (23 percent). While this is clearly an issue across the enterprise, the reality is that data accuracy is the price of admission in doing business in today's markets. When you aggregate all the challenges of gaining business intelligence, the number jumps significantly — Difficulty Extracting Insights (42 percent) was highly reported. Other challenges reported by respondents include:

• Excessive Data – 12 percent
• Number of Data Sources – 7 percent
• List Development Time – 5 percent
• Inaccurate Prospect Data due to Age – 4 percent
• Time Spent on Admin vs. Selling – 7 percent

The report finds that access to accurate data is not enough to drive positive business outcomes alone and the biggest challenge organizations face is being able to actually use the data that is on-hand in a way that has the greatest benefit to the organization's growth. The net results of doing so include an increase in sales quality leads, increased marketing ROI and improved ability to identify key trends.

To do this, the report outlines that in order to drive data transformation, organizations must look beyond the data accuracy imperative to focus on delivery of business impact. To derive the greatest benefits from Big Data, organizations must meet a few specific and important requirements. First, it is critical to implement a strong, articulated data strategy; second, a business must learn which topics are going to be the most relevant to the strategic direction of the enterprise; and third, an organization needs to implement a solution that purposes and delivers Big Data in a way that is useful to the Lines of Business.

Survey respondents shared their topical priorities and demonstrated the need for strategic information to drive better decision making in the following categories:

• Data Accuracy – 66 percent
• Data Insights – 56 percent
• Sales Cycle Improvements – 46 percent
• Customer Spending & Risk Analysis – 46 percent
• Customer Information and Insights – 45 percent
• New Customer Predictive Analytic – 44 percent

Simply stated, the report finds that data stakes are getting higher every day and how data is gathered, managed, integrated and analyzed needs to become a core competency for organizations that want to be competitive, proactive and profitable.

"The true value of Big Data is the ability to leverage it for the development of an informed strategy that improves decision making, efficiency and effectiveness for enterprise functions," said Steve Pogorzelski, CEO, Avention. "We are proud to offer and are committed to providing our customers with a solution that harnesses Big Data to provide marketing, sales and research personnel with the level of insight needed to compete in the modern business landscape. By integrating Avention into existing strategy and business resources, enterprises will have the actionable information needed to drive business growth across the organization."  

For more information and to review the full report "Big Data for Marketing & Sales: Data Accuracy to Business Impact," click here. To register for Avention and IDG's exclusive webinar on the topic, taking place on Thursday, September 18 at 11 a.m. Central/noon Eastern, click here.    

Additional Resources

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About Avention

Avention, Inc., formerly OneSource, provides real-time, actionable B2B data from the world's most comprehensive database to deliver 21st century business information and sales and marketing enablement solutions. Avention℠ empowers sales, marketing and research professionals with the best global B2B data available and leverages that data with its cutting-edge software. Through four key capabilities – Conceptual Search℠, Business Signals℠, Ideal Profiles℠ and SmartLists℠ – users find leads, market segments and the business insights that can't be found anywhere else. Headquartered in Concord, Mass. with offices across North America, Europe and APAC, Avention has more than 4,000 customers worldwide. Visit http://www.avention.com and follow us on Twitter @AventionInc.

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SOURCE Avention, Inc.