Data leaders in a survey were benefiting from the reduced complexity, cost and accessibility of building and accessing real-time data architectures

In an “in-depth survey” of 556 executives and technical practitioners at US-based organizations across a variety of industries about their data strategies, respondents indicated that “the data race is not only heating up, but rapidly shifting toward real-time data.”

Two-thirds of respondents’ organizations had more than 1,000 employees, and none had fewer than 100. The reference to “real-time data” is data that powers “in-the-moment use cases such as recommendations and personalization, or always-up-to-date inventory and logistics.”


Analysis of the data led to the following findings:
    • 71% of respondents indicated that they can tie their revenue growth directly to real-time data
    • 42% of ‘data leaders’ (organizations that defined to have “excelled at leveraging data to create new products and new revenue streams”) experienced a “transformative impact on revenue growth”, compared to 18% of respondents whose organizations did not prioritize real-time data.
    • 34% of data leaders indicated improved customer satisfaction; 31% indicated they had increased market share
    • 66% of respondents in organizations with a strategic focus on real-time data indicated that developer productivity had improved
    • 78% of all respondents “agreed” to prompts that real-time data was a “must-have,” not a “nice-to have”

According to Bryan Kirschner, Vice President, Strategy, DataStax, which commissioned the survey, the survey showed real-time data powered better digital experiences for the group of respondents. This had made customers happy, enabled developers to be more productive, driving revenues, and making boards and investors happy.

“While the benefits of real-time data are widely recognized, survey respondents identified barriers—such as data complexity, controlling data costs, and data accessibility—to leveraging real-time data. Yet, new developments in data architectures are breaking down those barriers” for developers, said Kirschner. The complexity of deploying real-time applications is no longer the barrier it once was, and real-time data infrastructure is accessible to any organization.