Snowflake Computing has announced the results of a Harvard Business Review Analytic Services study: ‘An inflection point for the data-driven enterprise’. Retail/CPG was found to have the lowest overall score for Digital Data Analytics Maturity, a sign that does not bode well for them at the start of the holiday shopping season.

The study reveals significant gaps between what enterprises want to implement and what they have actually accomplished with modern data sharing and advanced analytics. Only 5% of survey respondents believe that their organisations are very effective at implementing modern data sharing, while 67% want to move towards that approach.

With modern data sharing, data doesn’t physically move. Instead, data is shared in a secure and governed way in real time by easily creating access to read-only copies of the data between any combination of organisations consisting of ‘data providers’ and ‘data consumers’. This creates unlimited opportunities for organisations to integrate shared data with their own data, giving them a level of insight previously unavailable to them.

Organisations that use traditional methods endure high costs, lengthy delays and avoidable risks only to share static copies of stale data. This limits how and with whom they can share data:

•          29% share data within functional groups or business units
•          21% share data across business units within an organisation
•          15% share data externally with key vendors/suppliers
•          14% share data externally with partners outside their industry

“While all the industries surveyed could profit from advanced data analytics, retail/CPG stands out as an industry that could reap huge benefits by implementing modern data sharing,” Snowflake CEO, Bob Muglia, said.

“Iconic brick and mortar brands such as Radio Shack and Toys ‘R’ Us have stumbled, but I am confident that other retailers can emerge successful by modernising their data analytics with the most advanced technologies, such as the cloud-built data warehouse and modern data sharing to become more agile, innovative and customer-centric.”

Harvard Business Review Analytic Services surveyed 729 global business leaders across industries for the report, which found that across categories, only a five per cent of enterprises were truly data-driven. Additionally, retail/CPG had the lowest overall score for Digital Data Analytics Maturity, a sign that does not bode well for them at the start of the holiday shopping season.