Who is investing in big data and analytics — and why?

MODERN businesses and ecosystems are data-rich environments.

The use of sensors has made it possible to track, collect, and store data from within and outside the business, often in real-time. When 5G finally arrives, that pool of data will become more robust and its analysis more efficient.

As a result, businesses that can make a big dent in their industry by exploiting data are now suddenly making a dash for intelligent big data and analytics solutions.

A new forecast by IDC suggests that worldwide revenues for big data and business analytics (BDA) solutions will reach US$260 billion in 2022 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.9 percent over the 2017-2022 forecast period.

BDA revenues are expected to total US$166 billion this year, an increase of 11.7 percent over 2017.

Bankers and manufacturers lead the way

The industries making the largest investments in big data and business analytics solutions throughout the forecast are banking, discrete manufacturing, process manufacturing, professional services, and federal/central government.

Combined, these five industries will account for nearly half (US$81 billion) of worldwide BDA revenues this year.

They will also be the industries with the largest BDA opportunity in 2022 when their total investment will be US$129 billion.

Bankers understand that their business is based on data, and harvesting and harnessing that data is becoming an important aspect of how they run their business.

Using BDA solutions, bankers can find hidden trends in the industry and uncover subliminal choices and preferences of customers. Doing so will help create better products and solutions in order to get a strong competitive advantage in the market.

Manufacturers too are realizing that they can gain access to data in new environments and use them in new and interesting ways.

The arrival of the internet of things (IoT) makes it possible for manufacturers to track products that have been sold to clients, using sensors that relay information back to them (with the customer’s permission of course).

As a result, manufacturers can tap into data that provides rich customer insights and helps them transform their product development efforts. Data from internal sources is also useful and can help fine-tune the activities in the factory for better efficiency.

The industries that will deliver the fastest BDA revenue growth are retail (13.5 percent CAGR), banking (13.2 percent CAGR), and professional services (12.9 percent CAGR).

IDC predicts that more than half of all BDA revenues will go to IT and business services over the course of the forecast.

Where is the growth coming from?

Services-related revenues will also be among the fastest growing areas of opportunity with a combined CAGR of 13.2 percent.

Software investments will grow to more than US$90 billion in 2022, led by purchases of end-user query, reporting, and analysis tools and relational data warehouse management tools.

Two of the fastest growing BDA technology categories will be cognitive/AI software platforms (36.5 percent CAGR) and non-relational analytic data stores (30.3 percent CAGR).

BDA-related purchases of servers and storage will grow at a CAGR of 7.3 percent, reaching nearly US$27.0 billion in 2022.

From a company size perspective, IDC believes that very large businesses (those with more than 1,000 employees) will be responsible for nearly two-thirds of the BDA opportunity throughout the forecast, surpassing the US$100 billion level in 2018.

Small and medium businesses (SMBs) will also be a significant contributor to BDA revenues with nearly a quarter of the worldwide revenues coming from companies with fewer than 500 employees.

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