All kinds of businesses are looking to get into the Big Data game, but a worryingly high number of them are doing so without fully understanding what they’re getting themselves into. It’s one thing to collect and store masses and masses of data, but doing so is only half the battle – companies also need to optimize their stored data correctly in order to make the most of it, and this is where numerous firms have fallen flat on their face.

A new report, produced by Inbox Insight, Computacenter and Hitachi Data Systems (HDS), reveals that nearly 60% of European organizations surveyed were having difficulties analyzing the data stored on their systems. These companies, while able to cope with the velocity and volume of data, found they were unable to find and use information effectively due to their infrastructure not being sufficiently optimized.

According to the research, just over half of organizations surveyed (52.5%) lacked the necessary processes needed to consolidate data into a structure that allows for it to be tapped easily. As a result, these organizations are unable to spot trends hidden within their Big Data and discover new oportunities. Moreover, this lack of optimization makes it difficult for many of these firms to meet regulatory requirements.

Overwhelmed by Big Data?

Bill McGloin, practice leader for data optimisation at Computacenter, warned that as markets in Europe become more competitive, organizations that simply store up data without trying to optimize it will find it much harder to stay competitive:

“Using analytics to understand and exploit data will continue to increase in importance – but it’s clear from this report that organisations lack the process and infrastructure to make this a reality. Company data today is like a woman’s handbag. It may hold a lot, but actually finding anything in it is practically impossible.”

The struggles that companies face in exploiting their Big Data are telling. The research found that a massive 85% of European firms admitted that their employees have difficulty in finding information, something that might also suggest a lack of, or inadequate training. In addition, one third of organizations (37.6%) said that they were struggling with legislation, which brings the risk of fines being imposed on them. Finally, 25% of companies surveyed admitted that they were ineffective at gaining business advantages from Big Data.

McGloin continues:

“Although companies now have enough storage performance to cope with data, they may not have the data structure which would make business analytics possible. Getting on the path to data analytics needs to be a key priority for 2013 if organisations are to effectively compete, innovate and bring new services to market. In what could potentially be a ‘lost decade’ of growth, companies which fail to prepare should prepare themselves to fail.”

In other words, failure to act wouldn’t mean that European companies are simply failing to exploit their Big Data to the fullest, it could also lead to their ultimate downfall.