Driving Big Data Capabilities and Sustainable Innovation in Organisations

Big data can not only provide a glimpse into the current state of a business, but may also provide a foundation for discovering new business opportunities, driving process improvement and innovation and ultimately improving the bottom line. However, realising this explicit value from big data is not without challenges. It is estimated that few big data endeavours succeed, with only a small portion of analytic insights actually delivering measurable business value. The challenges are multifaceted, including factors such as a lack of an overall big data strategy, insufficient buy-in from executive management, resistance to technology adoption, inadequate technical and soft skills and team structures, and poorly-directed investments. Without an understanding of the current landscape or state of the art as far as technology and advanced analytics are concerned, along with a clear roadmap to guide their big data efforts, organisations will find it more difficult to realise the value that big data promises. In this paper some of the uncertainties and challenges faced by organisations with respect to big data are addressed, by presenting a model which evaluates an organisation's capabilities with regard to data centricity and provide an actionable roadmap for the implementation and improvement of big data endeavours. This enables organisations to focus their efforts on creating value from big data, where the model informs continuous efforts in improving organisational efficiency and effectiveness, and driving sustainable innovation.