With data as the new digital lifeblood, organizations leading in data-driven strategies tended to be in the pink of health: survey

In a global survey conducted from May through June 2022 of 2,000 IT, security and business leaders from Australia, France, Germany, India, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States on the economic benefits of mature data practices, the most data-savvy firms were better at increasing profits, reduce time-to-market, and exceeding financial performance expectations.

Additionally, an industry-focused addendum to the report contributed more findings based on the survey data.

According to Ammar Maraqa, Chief Strategy Officer, Splunk Inc., which commissioned the survey, organizations in the survey that prioritized investments in collecting and using their data “had full visibility into their digital systems and business performance, which made it easier to adapt and respond to disruptions, security threats and changing market conditions.”

How data leaders monetized data

The research report for the survey defines ‘leaders’ as organizations that have achieved excellence in the key areas of data classification: aggregation, quality, analysis skills, analysis tools and monitoring.


Here are some of the survey findings:

    • 9.5% was the average increase in gross profits across data leaders in the survey.
    • 11% was the average increase in resilience and ability to identify and remediate security incidents among the data leaders.
    • 49% of respondents that were data leaders were more likely to report that applying data innovation to sales, marketing and customer service/support had contributed to increasing customer lifetime value. This was compared to 30% in respondents that were deemed ‘beginners’ in data management.
    • 5.7 times more likely to indicate that their organization was almost always making better decisions than competitors, data leaders were 4.5 times as likely to believe their organization was “in a very strong position to compete and succeed in their markets over the next few years”.
    • 38% was the increase in the operationalization of data assets by data leaders over non leaders. Leaders in the survey were also more likely to say that their data monetization streams were ‘additive’ and ‘grew faster’. They were indicating 2.3 times more data monetization revenue compared to non-leaders.
    • 67% of data leaders indicated feeling a high degree of pressure, compared to data innovation intermediates (41%) and beginners (15%).
    • Across the various global industries:
      • Public sector: 20% of respondents spent more than a quarter of their IT budgets on solutions and staff that investigate, monitor, analyze and act on data, compared to the cross-industry average of 8%.
      • Financial services: 79% of respondents had adopted AI/ML for data innovation, versus 67% overall.
      • Healthcare: 9% of surveyed organizations were among the most mature group of data innovators; in healthcare and life sciences respondents, the figure was 11%.
      • Manufacturing: 54% of respondents in this industry applied data innovation to supply chain and operations use cases, compared to 45% of organizations across all industries.
      • Retail: 10% of this respondents group (considered above the industry average) were deemed data innovation leaders, and were more likely to report good data innovation-fueled outcomes.