Only 50% of companies can measure the cost of their data, ICRON survey shows

50% of companies are not able to measure the cost of their data, according to the results of a survey conducted by ICRON, a leading provider of Optimized Decision Making and Supply Chain Optimization software solutions. The survey, which was completed by 165 executives at the IoT EurAsia 2018 event held in Istanbul last week, revealed that approximately half of companies – and only 35% in the manufacturing sector and 43% in the services sector – can accurately gauge their data costs, which may include costs for data collection, data cleaning, data updating, and data storage and access.

The survey also showed that only 68% of the data collected by companies is considered to be reliable and of good quality, while 32% of the data is thought to be unreliable and of poor quality. Only 12% of the respondents said that all the data that their companies collect is reliable and accurate. Furthermore, the group of executives who admitted that they don’t know the cost of their companies’ data also said that only 62% of their data is reliable and of good quality – which means that around 38% of their data costs are related to data that they deem to be unreliable and of substandard quality. 

Alfred den Besten, ICRON’s Chief Marketing Officer, commented: “The results of our survey are fascinating, as such a high percentage of respondents stated that they don’t know what the true cost of their data is and that they think their data is not reliable and of subpar quality. This means that many companies are burning money on collecting and maintaining useless data, and that unreliable data is being used to make important business decisions – and this poses a major risk. To be successful, companies must be able to assess the cost and improve the accuracy of their data and use their data to make the best possible decisions.” ICRON’s President A. Tamer Ünal – who gave a presentation at the IoT EurAsia event on the topic of how to “Instantly transform your data into optimized decisions” – remarked: “Companies today have access to a tremendous amount of data from various sources including IoT devices and back-office systems, and data is the key driver of their business decisions.

The fact that so many executives don’t have a handle on their data costs and don’t trust the reliability of their data demonstrates that there is a real need for systems and solutions that enhance data utilization. ICRON’s groundbreaking optimized decision making platform does exactly that, enabling companies to use their data to automatically generate optimal plans and projections and make optimized decisions that minimize costs and maximize productivity and performance.”

 ICRON will be releasing the full results of the survey in the coming weeks.