Asia Pacific Companies Can Increase Revenue by 25% or More by Using Big Data

Organizations That Participated in the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)
Survey Could Increase Their Collective Revenue by US$250 Billion by Using Big Data, According to Projections by Hitachi Data Systems

In Malaysia, around 63% of respondents, or nearly twice the regional average, cites a lack of communication between departments as the major inhibitor to 
effectively using data in their organizations

KUALA LUMPUR — November 29, 2013 — Hitachi Data Systems Corporation (HDS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), today announced research results revealing that almost half of the firms surveyed in Asia Pacific believe that big data can improve revenue by 25% or more, with HDS projecting a potential US$250 billion revenue increase among the more than 500 companies surveyed. However, more than half of firms have made little or no progress in their big data strategies.

Executives at HDS believe it is essential for business executives to adopt a new approach where they think of “data as a capital asset” and to define a holistic big data strategy that will deliver insights and intelligence. This change in focus will enable organizations to innovate with information and generate incremental income.

“Today, most organizations have a limited data-capital ‘budget’ that prevents them from realizing the full potential of the information they hold,” said Neville Vincent, senior vice president and general manager, Asia Pacific, HDS. “Staff members long for more information and realize its revenue potential, but lack access to it. It is time for C-level executives to ensure cultural alignment throughout their organizations, and to treat data like a capital asset that can bring a significant impact to their business.”

“Our vision is for businesses of all shapes and sizes to use advanced technologies to realize the value of their organization’s data. Members of the IT department need to be  involved in the business planning cycle much earlier and more tightly integrated to the business in order to deliver essential information and insights to the people who can use it to drive business innovation and realize incremental income,” added Vincent.

Slow Adoption but Promising Benefits of Big Data
The survey results were published in an Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Asia Pacific Big Data Survey, sponsored by HDS, titled The Hype and the Hope: The Road to Big Data Adoption in Asia Pacific. The survey was conducted with over 500 business executives in Asia Pacific. Results show that Asia Pacific firms have had limited success so far in implementing big data practices. While a third say they are well advanced, more than half say they have made only limited progress. Some 80% of front-line employees said that they believe improved access to data is critical, with only 19% able to access the data they need.

Despite the lack of progress, respondents believe in the ability of big data to improve their businesses: more than 70% say that it can deliver gains in productivity, profitability, and innovation.

The reasons for slow adoption of big data strategies are diverse. Respondents cite poor internal communication and information sharing as well as a lack of in-house skills and software. Nearly two-fifths say their company’s big data strategy has not been well communicated. In Malaysia, around 63% of respondents, or nearly twice the regional average, cites a lack of communication between departments as the major inhibitor to effectively using data in their organizations. The limited take-up also flies in the face of the wider belief that effective use of data matters; more than three-quarters believe it is critical to success.

Telecommunications (67%), consumer goods (57%) and financial services (52%) industries are leaders in recognizing that big data can greatly improve their understanding of customer needs. However, more than 60% of the firms in the financial services and consumer goods industries haven’t started any big data programs. Healthcare and life science are lagging further behind; 72% of them haven’t started any big data programs.

Approaches to Improve Big Data Adoption
At HDS, we believe that organizations have to address the issues and maximize the value of big data by turning it into business intelligence.

Ensure cultural alignment throughout the organization: C-level executives should realize the significant impact of big data on their revenue and competitiveness, and take ownership for defining a big data strategy. Organizations should adopt policies that help break down silos, improve internal communications, and establish advanced technology platforms that can support information management and analysis.

Early IT Integration: IT departments need to be involved in the business planning cycle earlier and more tightly integrated to the business in order to translate data into intelligence, and increase the return on data capital assets. IT contributions are measurable and have a real impact on increasing revenue outcome.

Understanding the real business needs and delivering intelligence by using the right technologies and technology partners not only enables sophisticated analysis, but also delivers a high level of automation that can offload the burden of daily operations.

“Taking advantage of big data is not an information technology but a sound business practice,” said Vincent. “The future success of organizations will depend on business owners being able to define their own big data strategies and on IT serving up the needed intelligence.”

Partnering with Hitachi, Ltd., HDS applies decades of expertise in vertical industries to give customers real-time information, useful analytics for decisions, and automated and integrated technologies. The company integrates infrastructure, content, and information with vertical industry applications to help customers turn their data into valuable business insights.


Hitachi Data Systems Identifies 5 Key Trends That Will Drive Technology Transformation in Asia Pacific in 2014

Trends from Developments in Mobile Communications to the Expansion of Data Security and the Cloud-broker Model Will Impact How Organizations Deploy and Use IT Next Year

KUALA LUMPUR — November 29, 2013 — Hitachi Data Systems Corporation (HDS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), today released its HDS 2014 Asia Pacific predictions. Adrian De Luca, chief technology officer, Hitachi Data Systems Asia Pacific, identified the 5 key IT trends emerging in this region in 2014 that will impact the use of technology among organizations.

De Luca predicted that:
1. Big data analytics will go beyond the proof-of-concept phase and into production in established markets.
2. As the cloud-broker model gains traction in Asia Pacific, organizations will transform their IT departments from technology implementers to business innovators.
3. Concerns over data security will reach a tipping point, not only for the mobile data that moves between devices and the cloud, but also for data in content repositories.
4. The Asia Pacific region will witness an explosion of unstructured data from mobile communications.
5. Competition between different countries and regions to become the digital hub of Asia will enter a critical stage in 2014.

“Big data, cloud, and data encryption are some of the hottest global IT trends. As a region, Asia Pacific has its own unique economic and infrastructure conditions. We believe these wider technology trends will combine with local business drivers to shape the IT and storage landscape in this region in 2014,” De Luca said.

1. Big data analytics will go beyond proof of concept:
Enterprises will have to find ways to uncover value from within their existing data stores and deploy scalable infrastructures to extract meaningful outcomes from big data projects.

In the recent Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Asia Pacific Big Data Survey, sponsored by HDS, over 70% of organizations in the region believe big data adoption will improve their profitability, productivity, and innovation. However, many organizations find that their existing information systems hinder the effective gathering of data for analysis as the information is stored and managed in separate business systems, information silos, formats, and media. The big data challenge comes in two forms: technology and organization. In 2014, companies will try to address both.

2. The cloud-broker model will gain traction: 
Organizations will transform their IT departments from technology implementers to business innovators. Enterprises with high-demand IT infrastructure and application services will start exploring the cloud-broker model, preferring to work with providers who act as vendor-neutral third-party cloud services brokerages.

When it comes time to refresh technology, the focus will be on applications and business outcomes rather than the infrastructure itself. Enterprises will start turning to their system integrators, internal IT organizations, or third-party service providers to play the role of cloud-service broker.

3. Concerns over data security will reach a tipping point: 
Across Asia Pacific, new legislation is being introduced to protect personal data. Organizations will have to re-examine their security policies and look to solutions such as enterprise file sync and share, data encryption, and auditability to address these issues.

Organizations will increase their emphasis on mobile and edge security, and will implement stricter security and data management practices. They will have to use modern technologies to manage and automate these processes; otherwise the cost of compliance could be very high.

4. Unstructured data from mobile communications will see explosive growth:
Telecom operators in Asia Pacific will need to deploy sophisticated data management solutions to address needs for both content delivery and data analysis. Those that do will gain a competitive advantage in the long term.

The rollout of 4G and the affordability of smartphones have tremendous implications for the growth of mobile data in the region. To manage the growing volume of digital content services to consumers, telecom operators will need to develop a scalable, high-performance and reliable IT infrastructure architecture that incorporates flash-based storage and intelligent content delivery networks to meet these high-bandwidth requirements.

5. Competition to become the digital hub of Asia will enter a critical stage:
The data center industry will continue to grow as countries in the region compete to become the digital hub of Asia. Service providers will invest in state-of-the-art facilities and advanced infrastructure to differentiate their services.

Organizations use cloud deployments as an opportunity to transform their legacy IT to new consumption-based IT models. Many will start with the deployment of on-premise private clouds. Other organizations that are more advanced in their cloud journey will begin to move their enterprise applications off premises to cloud service providers, together with on-premise converged platforms.

In addition to De Luca’s predictions for Asia Pacific, Hu Yoshida, chief technology officer of HDS, also revealed his predictions on top 10 global IT trends for 2014. The predictions are published on Hu’s blog.