More execs recognise data as assets than in 2020

Capgemini has reported that organisations today are more effective at embedding data and insights into core business processes. 

Its update of a 2020 study is based on a survey of 500 business executives and 500 data executives from 500 organisations across 12 countries. In 2024, 60% of executives described their decision-making and actioning as data-powered. This represents a 10% increase compared with the 2020 study.

According to Capgemini, organisations are more sophisticated in terms of unlocking and quantifying the value of data and artificial intelligence (AI). It found that some are even monetising it, either by selling to third parties or generating usable insights.

In the UK, Capgemini reported that in the UK, investment in analytics tools and platforms has increased from 64% in 2020 to 81% in 2024. The study found that organisations’ ability to use data to introduce new products and services has increased from 58% in 2020 to 75% in 2024.

Overall, there has also been an 8% increase in the proportion of executives (nearly 70%) who describe data as an enterprise asset, compared with 2020 (62%). Capgemini said over half (52%) of respondents state that their organisations quantify the value of data in their accounting systems, compared with 22% in 2020. The percentage of respondents who agree that their organisations are monetising data assets through their products and services in 2024 has also gone up (53% compared with 43% in 2020).

To support the increased use of data, Capgemini found that organisations have strengthened their foundations around infrastructure, tools and platforms since 2020.

The update to the study shows there has been a 9% increase in the adoption of data, business intelligence and analytics in the cloud from 51% in 2020 to 60% in 2024. Capgemini also reported that over three-quarters (76%) of executives say their organisations have invested in data analytics tools compared with 54% in 2020. According to Capgemini, there is a significant growth in investment in analytics, tools and platforms, but a slowing growth in cloud adoption for data, business intelligence and analytics.

A senior executive at a European bank quoted in the report said the modernisation of IT enables businesses to manage larger data volumes, harness unstructured data and accelerate AI development.

“While not necessarily cheaper, the modernisation of data technology allows us to extract more value and insights,” they said. “The migration to cloud and adoption of modern data stacks have propelled us into a new era of data utilisation.”

Capgemini has predicted that the amount of data created, captured, copied and consumed globally in 2025 will be nearly three times as much as in 2020. It expects that 80‒90% of this data will be unstructured, in the form of videos, emails, images, HTML content and social media.

The firm noted that from an IT infrastructure perspective, unstructured data adds to the challenges of integration with structured data and storage-data redundancy.