Study: companies still falling short on big data goals Read more: Study: companies still falling short on big data goals

September 18, 2012 | By Ariella Brown

A recently conducted CompTIA study has indicated that many companies still fall far short of their big data goals. It's based on two online surveys: one involving 400 American IT and business executives who are in charge of the systems relating to their companies' data, and the other 435 executives at IT firms who are only somewhat involved in those areas.

Both surveys were limited to U.S. companies and conducted in July 2012.

"As expected for an emerging technology with an evolving definition, many executives are still moving along the big data learning curve," Tim Herbert, CompTIA vice president of research,observed.

53 percent of those surveyed said they intend to devote resources to enhancing "the skills of current employees," while 32 percent said they would be looking into outside hires to get people with the skills they seek.

Additionally, 28 percent said they foresee entering into contracts with outside consultants "for services ranging from cloud storage integration, data center management or predictive analytics application deployment."

Currently, only about one in five businesses say they have a big data initiative in progress, though 36 percent say they intend to launch one within the next year. Some obstacles to pushing through big data projects include data silos that interfere with holistic views of data, and a lack of understanding of unstructured data.