Businesses unable to analyse 90% of their data: IBM

IBM has warned of a major data analysis problem among big businesses, with many unable to interpret over 90% of their information.

Jeff Jonas, IBM chief scientist for the entity and analytics group, was speaking as IBM opened its annual Information on Demand conference in Las Vegas this week.

Jonas said, “As computers are getting faster, organisations are getting dumber – they are now lucky to fully understand seven percent seven of their data and this is steadily getting worse.”

Jonas previously ran the SRD company that provided the casino industry with the systems to tackle organised card counters, before it was acquired by Big Blue in 2005.

IBM said it is continuing to strive to offer firms data management solutions as the amount of data generated threatens to get out of control for most companies. IT is seeking to build on its BigData management, and cloud and mobile data access offerings, IBM reps said.

Sarah Diamond, global managing partner for financial services at IBM Global Business Services, called for the banks to fully adopt data transformation programmes to satisfy the regulators and help deliver growth to their investors.

Diamond said, “The crisis in the financial services sector has continued, with the IMF estimating it has already written off $2.2 trillion through bad debts and other losses.

“Transformation is the new ‘normal’, data silos and spreadsheets to understand your data are no longer good enough to manage your data – firms must deliver transparency to satisfy the regulators and create business growth,” she added.

Over the course of the week IBM will be putting more meat on the bones of its data management strategy.

New BigInsights technology on the IBM SmartCloud offering will help clients make sense of massive amounts of unstructured data from a variety of sources, including social networks and mobile devices, analysts said. It is estimated that 80% of a company’s data is unstructured data, making it difficult to manage and interpret for business use, analysts added.

There is also the introduction of new mobile device support with the showing of IBM Cognos Mobile software for the iPad, and the new SPSS Statistics 20.0 software will include a new mapping feature giving users the ability to add a geographic dimension to data analysis and reporting, allowing them to target, forecast, and plan by geographical areas, representatives said.