BENGALURU: The significant gap between enterprises’ business priorities and performance can be bridged by improving analytics capabilities, according to a study conducted by International Data Corporation (IDC) and commissioned by analytics automation company Alteryx.

According to the research, Indian companies' top business priorities include customer experience, new product development and cost reduction, which are also areas where major gaps between business priorities and performance exist.

Currently, while more than 90% of business executives believe that data analytics are important for their organisations to remain performant, only 4% of enterprises have achieved high analytics maturity. APAC enterprises that are ‘Analytics Experts’ tend to outperform their peers across all major business priorities, especially in areas like cost reduction (56%), business model innovation (28%), new product development (17%) and market expansion (12%). India has the least number of organisations which are ‘Analytics Experts’ among the countries surveyed.

To help enterprises determine their analytics maturity level, IDC designed a framework that assesses their standing across four key dimensions--strategy, data, workforce, and process--before providing an aggregated score that identifies beginners, practitioners, or experts. In addition, the framework describes the journey to becoming an Analytics Expert by achieving maturity in strategy, data, workforce, and process.

The research found that enterprises are more mature in strategy and data dimensions, with 53% having achieved buy-in and alignment among key stakeholders regarding analytics initiatives. A large majority, however, lack necessary data (91%), workforce (87%) and process capabilities (97%), which are crucial for data-driven transformation at scale and deriving long-term business value.

"In today’s volatile, uncertain and challenging business environment, enterprises in India have expressed the need to invest in mission-critical business areas. In addition, with the evolving needs of customers, enterprises must innovate their business models to meet new needs," said Julian Quinn, senior vice president, APJ, Alteryx.

“The findings show a consensus towards the critical role that analytics plays in driving business performance. Yet, organisations are grappling with multiple challenges in using data analytics, uncovering the need to improve data, workforce and process analytics capabilities. To deliver breakthrough outcomes, organizations need to automate processes and democratize data analytics, elevating workforce’s ability to gain on-demand insights for thriving in their roles," Quinn added.