The study revealed that only 8% of all companies in the German-speaking countries make full use of existing data in decision-making processes, while 44% are using at least some of their data. On the other hand, almost one in two companies misses out on such added value even though they have already invested in corresponding analytics systems, which means that, in principle, the data is available. A wide range of opportunities to draw company-relevant conclusions from sensor, geo and social media data is there to be had, including predictive maintenance and orienting production to recently emerging market trends.

According to Sopra Steria, however, 43% of companies surveyed find it difficult to turn data into insights and use the information to create added value. When it comes to integrating and linking data with technical work, more than one in four companies has a lot of catching up to do. Feeling overwhelmed by big data, some companies no longer even attempt to exploit as many data sources and records as possible, but rather stick to a narrower set of data that they fully understand.