Organisations are struggling to make 'data-guided decisions', according to Computing Delta research

IT departments are providing the data, but the tools are lagging, Computing Delta research among IT leaders reveals

Analytic tools are inadequate or too difficult to use, undermining organisations' ability to make ‘data-guided decisions'.

That's one of the conclusions of new Computing Delta research, which found that while IT departments are providing access to more data than ever, enabling better business decisions to be made, the actual tools available to dissect, slice, dice and examine the data are lacking - as is the will among senior business leaders and, often, the skills.

The research, and how this problem may be overcome, will be discussed during a live Computing webinar on Wednesday at 11am.

Conducted among IT decision makers at more than 150 organisations across the UK, the research found that the majority feel that their organisation's data vision and strategy has been largely successful, but integrating HR, payroll, finance and accounting systems remains a job that some two-thirds still need to complete.

Such integration makes it easier to provide a ‘helicopter' view across enterprise information.

"In these highly connected, interlinked systems, you'd think there would be a high degree of confidence that managers can make the right data-guided calls," says Tom Wright, consulting editor of Computing.

In fact, the opposite is true. While integration of applications like payroll and finance has continued apace, and organisations are making more enterprise data available to decision makers than ever, confidence would appear to be falling.

"The largest chunk of respondents, according to our research among IT leaders, are sitting on the fence, feeling neither positive, not negative," says Wright.

"IT pros are confident that the data has been provided, but are not so confident that it is being used appropriately. They cite ‘cultural resistance' and ‘bad visibility', followed by ‘poor integration between applications' as the reason."

Wright suggests that it is a combination of people - including business leaders - being somewhat stuck in their ways, followed-up by insufficient training, manifested by ‘skills' being cited as one of the major reasons why organisations have not adopted data-guided decision-making as widely as they perhaps ought to have done.

Wright adds that a "huge investment in people" will probably be required to overcome this obstacle.

Tom Wright will be presenting the research in a Computing webinar live at 11am on Wednesday 20^th November, alongside Computing editorial director Stuart Sumner and Oliver McKenna, chief technology officer of Northern Europe for Workday. Sign-up now and tune in tomorrow at 11am.